History Channel America: The Story of US
History has earned some inspiring look at how self-determination and innovation made America. Now, a special introduction from the President of United States.
Good evening. Over two hundred years ago, the world waited and watched to see if an unlikely experiment called America would succeed. It has. Not because the success was certain, or because it was easy, but because generations of Americans dedicated their lives and the sacred honor to a cause greater than themselves.
This has been especially true in moments of great trial, when a ragtag group of patriots overthrew an empire to secure the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, when an Illinois rail splitter proved for all time that the government of, by and for the people would endure, when marchers' brave beatings on the Alabama bridge in the name of equality, freedom and justice for all.
Moments like these remind us that our American stories have never been inevitable, those made possible by ordinary people, who kept moral compass pointed straight and true, when the way seemed treacherous, when the climb seemed steep, when the future seemed uncertain, people who were recognized as the fundamental part of our American character. We can remake ourselves, and our nation to fit our larger dreams. Tonight, thorough the series, I hope you'd be inspired by these extraordinary men and women, and think about how this generation will write the next chapter in our great American story. Thank you, and enjoy the show.
We are a land of many nations. We are New World explorers. We are the huddled masses. Yearning to breathe freedom, we'll risk it all. We have the courage to dream the impossible, and make it the truth. We stand our ground. Charge headlong towards our destiny.
Adventurers sail across an ocean to start a new life. A nation is born, which becomes the envy of the world. But in search of freedom, friends become foes, and these new Americans, will wage a war against the world's greatest military power. We are pioneers and trailblazers. We fight for freedom. We transform our dreams into the truth. Our struggles will become a nation. Episode One Rebels
Shiploads of businessmen and true believers are crossing the Atlantic Ocean to create a new world. May 1610. 120 years after Columbus, it's still a perilous journey. One ship, The Deliverance, carries a cargo that will change America forever.
All hands over here. Onboard is John Rolfe, a 24-year-old English farmer. Ambitious, self-reliant, visionary. A born entrepreneur. What takes us six hours today by plane was then a voyage of more than two months. Seven of the early adventurers out of every ten will be dead within a year.
Land ahoy! But the risks are worth it. North America is the ultimate land of opportunity: A continent of vast untapped wealth, starting with the most valuable resource of all --- land. What will be home to more than 300 million people lies under a blanket of forest covering nearly half the land. More than 50 billion trees. Further west, 9 million square miles of vast American wilderness. 60 million bison roam the plains. And underground, there are rumors of gems, silver and the largest seams of gold in the world. The settlers expect nothing less than El Dorado. But what Rolfe finds at the English settlement of Jamestown, is hell on Earth. More than 500 settlers made the journey before Rolfe. “Hello?” “Hello?” Barely 60 remain. It's called "The Starving Time". Having fed on horses and other animals, we ate boots, shoes, and any other leather we came across. “Somebody, help!” Three months before Rolfe arrives, a man is burned at the stake for killing his pregnant wife and planning to eat her.
The English arrive unprepared for this new world and unwilling to perform manual labor. Instead of livestock, they've brought chemical tests for gold that they never find. And this is not their land. They build Jamestown in the middle of a Native American empire. 60 starving settlers among 20,000 of the Powhatan Nation, armed with bows and arrows that are up to nine times faster to reload and fire than an English musket. They're soon enemies. Only one in ten of the original settlers is left. John Rolfe didn't come to plunder and leave like the others. He's got his own plan.
There's money in tobacco, and England is addicted. He's arrived with a supply of South American tobacco seeds, but growing it is limited to the Spanish colonies. The Spanish control the worldwide trade. Selling tobacco seeds to foreigners is punishable by death. But John Rolfe has got his hands on some. No one knows how. And in the warm, humid climate and fertile soil around the Chesapeake Bay, Rolfe's tobacco crop flourishes. The first large harvest produced by these seeds is worth more than a million dollars in today's money.
The great strength of America is our people. If you wanna know what it is the defining strength of America, it is our people, our immigrant tradition, our bringing in cultures from all over the world. I know what goes into making success. And when somebody's really successful, it's rarely luck. It's talent, it's brain power, it's lots of other things.
Rolfe marries the daughter of the king of the Powhatan Empire. Her name becomes legend: Pocahontas. In England, Rolfe makes her a celebrity when her face is put on a portrait that sells all over London, advertising life in the New World. Shakespeare mentions the colony. England's rich invest money here. All of London knows about this land of plenty. Within two years, tobacco grows in every garden. From a living hell, Jamestown is America's first boomtown. Two years later, nearly 1,000 more settlers arrive, including 19 from West Africa. Slaves. But some go on to own their own land in Virginia. 12 years after the founding of Jamestown, Africans were playing a shaping role in the creation of the colonies. That's pretty incredible. 30 years later, there are over 20,000 settlers in Virginia. America is founded on tobacco. For the next century and a half, it's the continent's largest export.
Ten years after Rolfe arrives in Jamestown, another group of English settlers lands in North America. They come ashore on a deserted beach 450 miles up the coast from Jamestown, and call the place Plymouth, after the English port they sailed from. These are a different breed of settler, a group of religious dissidents with faith at the center of their lives. They made the dangerous Atlantic crossing, seeking religious freedom in the New World.
24-year-old apprentice printer Edward Winslow arrives with a group of religious sectarians on a boat called the Mayflower. By April 1621, their settlement is taking shape. The Mayflower returns to England.
The Pilgrims are on their own in an unknown land. A great hope and inward zeal we had of laying some great foundation for the propagating and advancing the gospel of the kingdom of Christ, in those remote parts of the world. They're 19 families. Goats, chickens, pigs and dogs. They have spinning wheels, chairs, books, guns. And no way home. If you create this environment as a land of opportunity, then you're gonna attract those type of people who wanna take that risk, who have-- wanna take that gamble and who believe in a better life.
They were heading for the Hudson River, but they've landed 200 miles further north at the beginning of winter. They have arrived in the middle of a mini ice age, temperatures 2 degrees colder than today. Winters are longer, growing seasons shorter. The soil is poor. Little grows. Food supplies run low. In the first three months, more than half the Pilgrims die. William Bradford is the governor of a community soon in desperate trouble. It pleased God to visit us with death daily. Disease was everywhere. The living were scarcely able to bury the dead. They died sometimes two or three a day. Of 100 and odd persons, scarce 50 remained. At times, only six are fit enough to continue building their shelters. Susanna White's husband dies that first winter. Edward Winslow's wife perishes a month after. Within weeks, White and Winslow marry. They'll have five children. Today more than 10% of all Americans can trace their ancestry back to the Mayflower. For a time, Plymouth provides the sanctuary they sought. “Edward! Edward! Edward, please go and look over there!” But like Jamestown, there were others here first.
April 1621. The Pilgrims have been in the New World for five months. Barely half survive the first winter.
But they're not the first Europeans to arrive on this coast. Five years before, European ships brought light-skinned people and plague. Almost nine out of ten of the local people are wiped out. The Pokanoket people don't need enemies. They make peace with the Pilgrims. They teach the English how to grow crops in sandy soil, using fish for fertilizer. But they want something in return. They have a common enemy--a rival tribe.
And the English have powerful weapons. The Pilgrims aren't soldiers. But in the New World, they have to fight to survive. On August 14, 1621, Pilgrims and Pokanoket, shoulder to shoulder, will launch a surprise attack that will seal their future in this new land. It was resolved to send 14 men, well-armed, and to fall upon them in the night. The captain gave charge: Let none pass out. The rival tribe doesn't know what hit them. Surrounded, they have no answer for English firepower. Pokanoket and Pilgrims find common ground...and a chance to survive. Two unlikely allies. A partnership all too rare in North America.
We have found the Indian very faithful in their covenant of peace with us. They are people without any religion or knowledge
of any God, yet very trusty, quick of apprehension, ripe-witted... and just. Their victory brings a period of peace to the colony. Their friendship is celebrated in a feast. In time, it will become known as Thanksgiving.
One of the main themes in the founding of America was a place to do business, a place to expand your horizons, a place to live a life of your own, practice your own religion. Those are the basic themes that brought people to these shores to colonize. It's the start of a period of prosperity, that will transform North America. From Jamestown and Plymouth, their descendants grow across the landscape. As more and more people cross the Atlantic--thousands, tens of thousands, people with different backgrounds, different reasons for being here...America becomes the place for everybody from everywhere.
Rolling the dice, coming together to create 13 colonies. From Jamestown, agriculture spreads across the South, dirt farms transform into sprawling plantations. Irish, Germans, and Swedes push back the frontier. The Dutch bring commerce to a small island at the mouth of the Hudson River. In time, it will be named New York. The colonists are 2 inches taller, and far healthier, than those they left behind in Europe. The Puritans average eight children, and they are twice as likely to survive to adulthood. They are 20% richer and pay only 1/4 of the taxes of those in England. Many still think of themselves as British, but each generation grows further from its roots. Nowhere more so than Boston.
May 9, 1768. Seven generations after John Rolfe's first tobacco harvest, the British want a bigger piece of the action. A British customs official springs a surprise raid on The Liberty, a ship belonging to John Hancock, one of the richest men in Boston. But Hancock's crew has other ideas. They're carrying 100 casks of imported wine and don't want to pay duty. It's a radical act of rebellion against taxes imposed by a king 3,000 miles away. To the British, they're just common smugglers. This mall skirmish changes everything. The British seize Hancock's ship, triggering riots that sweep through Boston. We didn't wanna pay taxes to a king and to a parliament where we didn't have a voice, and we didn't have any representation. We have a natural resentment toward government, which was how we were born. The king sends 4,000 redcoats to Boston to enforce his laws. Boston was a city of commerce, culture, civilization, and revolution, unfolding right before the eyes of the colonists and the eyes of the British.
October 1768. British soldiers clamp down on Boston, a port crucial to the British Empire...and a hub of global trade andcommerce. Its dockyards are some of the busiest in the world, producing 200 ships a year from America's vast timber reserves. 1/3 of all British shipping is built in the colonies. Timber fuels the global economy...much like oil does today. Across New England, marks identify the tallest, strongest trees selected by the crown for British ships. England has lost most of its forests. It wants American wood. In Boston, there's one redcoat for every four citizens. It's a city under occupation. Paul Revere is a silversmith and one of Boston's prominent businessmen...an unlikely subversive. They formed and marched with insolent parade, drums beating, fifes playing, and colors flying, each soldier having received 16 rounds of powder and ball.
He is an upper-middle-class figure, someone who has risen through his own efforts, his own talent. He represents what we have created on our own with very little help from our cousins across the Atlantic. But when revolution comes to North America...Revere will beat the center of it.
Boston and the 13 colonies are an economic powerhouse, critical to Britain. Nearly 40% of everything exported from Britain, makes its way to America. The fishing fleet ships thousands of tons of salted cod to the Caribbean. Returns with sugar andmolasses...raw material for rum. T axed by the British after every exchange. In Africa, rum is the currency used to purchase the most profitable cargo of all...African slaves.
Between 1700 and 1800, more than 1/4 of a million Africans are brought to the American colonies. More slaves than all those who came of their own free will. Most wind up on large plantations in the South. But they're also critical to the economy of the North. 10% of Boston's population is black. Boston is a melting pot, and tension is building.
Nobody likes invaders in their homes. To have people here, foreigners on your soil, is something-- is a great incentive for people to fight. March 5, 1770. After three days of unrest, an angry mob roams the streets. Hundreds of men who lost their jobs and blame the British gather on King Street and face off against eight redcoats with orders not to fire. What's about to
happen will change America forever. A 17-year-old wig maker's apprentice, Edward Garrick, lights the fuse.
This is how wars start. Come on, let's have it! Private Hugh Montgomery is hit with a club. An African-American, Crispus Attucks, dies instantly. Everybody, run! When the smoke clears, four more are dead. How Boston reacts will change the course of history. Silversmith and political radical Paul Revere captures the moment British soldiers kill five colonists in the streets of Boston.
His engraving will fuel the fires of revolution as outrage spreads across the 13 colonies. Unhappy Boston see thy sons deplore, thy hallowed walks besmeared with guiltless gore, whilst faithless Preston and his savage bands, with murderous rancor, stretch their bloody hands. The most formidable army in the world firing on an unarmed crowd. An explosive image with a title that says it all: "The Bloody Massacre." There was the old joke, "You give me a picture, I'll give you a war." Those who wanted to stir things up and to make a statement and maybe even lead a revolution, it made them able to rally others to their side.
News spreads fast. The colonists are avid readers, a legacy from the first Bible-reading Puritans in Plymouth. Boston has the first weekly newspaper. There are now more than 40 papers across the colonies. And the new postmaster general, Benjamin Franklin...has introduced a revolutionary postal-delivery system. Night riders cut the delivery time in half. The communications network connecting the colonies is one of the best in the world. And the British have no idea. They hope the news can be contained. Before news reaches England, most of America knows about the Boston Massacre. It's a very American spirit of an idea, this idea that everybody should have access to knowledge. It's very much like that pioneering idea, everybody should be able to make their way in the world. A printer in Connecticut can read the exact same story as a farmer in North Carolina.
December 1773. "The Boston Gazette" breaks another story, that will fan the flames of rebellion. The rising tide of anger and resentment forces England's hand. They repeal all taxes...except one, on tea. It's not enough. In one of the most famous acts of resistance in American history, Rebels dump over $1 million worth of tea in Boston Harbor. When someone comes along and smacks us, we don't turn the other cheek. That's not who we are. Move it! The British respond by shutting down Boston Harbor...one of America's busiest, wealthiest ports. Come on, lad. Hundreds lose their jobs. The British mean to strangle any resistance from the rebellious colony of Massachusetts. America is about to change forever. Tensions escalate far beyond Boston. Settlers are pushing west. Many have their eyes set on new land west of the Appalachians. But to protect Native. American lands, England has banned settlements, along a boundary called the Proclamation Line. Hundreds are evicted from their homes on the frontier.
September 5, 1774. We want liberty...Incensed at the British actions, 56 delegates from across the colonies gather at the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. It's the first step on the road to American democracy. Among them are John Adams, Patrick Henry, and a gentleman landowner from Virginia named George Washington. At a time when our lordly masters in Great Britain will be satisfied with nothing less than the deprivation of American freedom, it seems highly necessary
that something should be done to maintain liberty. Across New England, people prepare to defend themselves. Smuggled arms are collected and stashed in secret hideaways. But while many expect conflict, most delegates in Philadelphia want peace with Britain. A military action would make a wound that would never be healed. That's good, we don't have all day, let's go, come on. The First Continental Congress resolves that a British attack on any one colony will be regarded as an attack on all of them. What emerges at Philadelphia is solidarity. The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Englanders, and New Yorkers are no more. I'm not a Virginian. I am an American. The future of the 13 American colonies hangs in the balance.
Spring 1775. Near Concord, Massachusetts. Get in here, get those weapons stacked up. We haven't got all day. Local gunsmith Isaac Davis puts the town militia through basic training. The American patriots knew that they were doing the right thing. You're starting the birth of a nation. You had to really believe in what you were doing. You've gotta keep this clean here, sir. If you keep that clean, it'll save your life. If war comes, this will be America's first line of defense. A volunteer home guard with weapons paid for by local citizens. Gentlemen, it's looking good, it's looking good. Let's have some breakfast and move out. They're farmers, blacksmiths, and store owners. A fighting force of ordinary Americans. The militiamen of any of the colonies were made up of just its citizens. It was a citizen-based protection unit. And some of them had some skills, but some of them were just the carpenters. Some of them were just the mason or the blacksmith. I mean, these were the guys that--they had
something at stake to protect their colony. So they started to form together, just trying to help protect each other. Every town across the colonies has its own militia, but now they're preparing to defend themselves against the British Army. Better than yesterday, better than yesterday. For six generations across Massachusetts, men are expected to serve as militiamen. In Massachusetts, 1/3 of all men between 16 and 50 are ready to bear arms at a minute's notice. Excellent, good shot. We keep this up, we're gonna give those redcoats a scare, all right? The British will not stand for any armed resistance.
April 19, 1775. After midnight, 900 redcoats leave their barracks in Boston for Lexington and Concord, about 20 miles away. Their orders: Arrest the rebel leaders and seize their weapons. News of the British attack also reaches Paul Revere. His midnight ride will alert local militias. Revere rides ahead of the British troops. His warning spreads from town to town, across the New England countryside. Paul Revere reaches Lexington... in time to spread the word. The British are coming. We need to warn the militia. Get 'em together. Come on! By five in the morning, 60 militiamen line up. They're commanded by a farmer, John Parker. They're faced off against hundreds of well-armed and highly experienced British soldiers. What happens next will transform the world forever.
Sunrise, April 19, 1775. On one side 60 men, poorly armed and barely trained. On the other, hundreds of the most powerful army in the world. Men who have only been active for a handful of months, An army that in the past 20 years has fought on five continents and defeated everything in its path. For these Rebels, the fight is for nothing less than freedom itself. These guys were revolutionaries, they were scallywags, they were rebels, some of them were gentlemen farmers, some of them were overeducated, some of them were undereducated. It really was the birth of a nation. The Lexington Militia gathers on the village common. Dairy farmers and shopkeepers. But also among them are free African-Americans and slaves.
It is a unique experience that African-Americans have had in the military in America. African-Americans fought for the country, even before it was a country. African-Americans like Prince Estabrook. Give me training. You give me a weapon, and I can perform as well as you can. Then there's no power on Earth that's gonna hold me down forever. Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired upon. But if we mean to have war, let it begin here. Captain John Parker once fought on the side of the British. 1/4 of the men standing at his side are related to him. No one knows who fires the first shot at Lexington...but it's the shot heard 'round the world. I mean, the redcoats, that's intimidating, the way they move, the way they march, the way they execute on that open space. I imagine, on some level, for the guy who works the printing press, this is overwhelming beyond anything you could possibly articulate in words.
Fire! Prince Estabrook is hit in the first volley. No army in the world can stand toe-to-toe with the British, let alone a ragtag militia. Fire! The British fired up to four times the rate of the militia. Within minutes of the first shots fired at Lexington, eight Patriots are dead, ten wounded. The American Revolution has begun. The redcoats reach Concord at 9:00 in the morning. Acting on a tipoff from colonists loyal to the crown, they raid the militia's arms stash. But the Rebels have got there first...hiding almost everything.
That's good, we don't have all day, let's go, come on. They continue to search for weapons, giving the Patriots more time to spread the word. The militia gathers just outside the town of Concord. By late morning, more than 1,000 have arrived from the surrounding villages. Their plan, to defend their towns against the British. Let's go! The British soldiers left their barracks 15 hours ago. And now they face a 20-mile march back to Boston. The Shattered lives...an occupied city...blood in the streets of Boston...and now Lexington. A people unified in the fight against tyranny. Now the Patriots have their chance. Gunsmith and militia leader Isaac Davis takes a bullet through the heart. The Patriots seize the upper hand and intend to make the British soldiers pay. They shadow the redcoats' march, firing on them the entire way. A third are killed or wounded. Seven generations after the first settlers left England, in search of prosperity and freedom, their descendants will have to fight for these rights. Standing in their way is the might of the world's greatest military superpower. And they're not about to give up their colonies lightly.
A ragtag bunch of rebels faces the greatest military superpower of the day. It's a war they never should have won. This is the secret history of how they did it---daring, leadership, new ways of fighting and true American grit.
Episode Two Revolution
New York City. Gateway to North America. Today the financial capital of the world. Population: Eight Million people. In 1776, this is a city of just 20,000. It will soon become the battleground for the biggest land invasion in American history.
Three miles from Wall Street, where 23rd Street crosses Lexington Avenue today the Rebels dig in to defend New York at Kips Bay. Commander of the Rebel Army is General George Washington. He has already driven the British out of Boston. A surprise victory against superior forces. But they'll be back.
The hour is fast approaching on which the honor and success of this army, and the safety of our bleeding country depend. Joseph Plumb Martin enlisted in the Rebel forces at 15 inspired to fight under Washington's command. A farm boy, he joins thousands of untrained volunteers. Our Revolutionary Army was quite something. It was-- in a nation that wasn't really a nation yet, just starting out, and we took on the greatest superpower of the time. Washington's ragtag troops are about to face the best-equipped and most powerful fighting force in the world.
June 29th. 45 British warships mass off Staten Island. Bearing down on New York City, the ultimate war machine of its day, the British ship-of-the-line. Each ship is made from over 2,000 century-old trees. Each carries hundreds more soldiers to the fight against the colonies. And each is armed with up to 64 heavy cannons capable of hurling a 24-pound cannonball at the speed of sound, delivering it to targets over a mile away. One ship-of-the-line costs the equivalent of a modern aircraft carrier. Another 350 British ships are racing across the Atlantic to join them. The British want to terrify the Rebels into submission. Instead, they inspire them to resist. On July 2nd, there's a crisis meeting in Philadelphia. 50 delegates elected to the Continental Congress from the 13 colonies hold an emergency session. They include radicals like Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. What they're debating is nothing less than high treason--total independence from Britain. The penalty is death. We are in the midst of a revolution, the most complete in the history of the world. It's the birth of American democracy. We have to expect a great expanse of blood to obtain it. Some don't believe the Rebels stand a chance. We are about to brave the storm in a skiff made of paper. But the doubters are outnumbered nearly five to one.
On July 4, 1776, the delegates ratify a document that will change the world, the Declaration of Independence. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."
Now think about that. They're saying that your rights come not from the king, not from the government, your rights come from God and furthermore, they can't be taken away from you. They're unalienable. Every group: blacks, women,
gays--everybody looks to the Declaration as a way of saying we are Americans, too. So the Declaration is the American creed. that among these are "Life"，"Liberty" and "the pursuit of Happiness." You cannot help but be stirred when you read those words. And you feel the excitement of being on the cusp of something so profound. We can be free. Now soldiers like Plumb Martin have something worth fighting for.
On July 12th, two British warships open fire on New York City. It must have been quite a shock because New York, up to that point, was pretty quiet city. It was a business city. So you had significant support for the Rebels but also significant support for the people who were still loyal to the king. A month later, Joseph Reed, secretary to George Washington, tracks the British fleet massing off New York. Over 400 ships, the largest British Naval task force until D-day. 32,000 British troops prepare to storm Manhattan Island. They outnumber Patriot forces two to one. Just five of the biggest British ships carry more firepower than all the Patriot guns in the city. Reed is awed by the sight. When I look down and see the prodigious fleet they have collected, I cannot help being astonished that a people should come 3,000 miles at such risk, trouble and expense to rob, plunder and destroy another people because they will not lay their lives and fortune at their feet. It's the biggest attack on New York City until September 11, 2001. But the Rebels will stand and fight. The difference for me was that the British Army was fighting for a king and the Americans were fighting for their lives.
Plumb Martin is one of 500 men standing guard at Kips Bay. Have a look. The first thing that saluted our eyes was all four ships at anchor within musket shot of us. "The Phoenix". I could read her name as distinctly as though I was directly underneath her
stern.Pull out your gun! The assault begins.
September 1776. New York is under fire. In one hour...2,500 British cannonballs smash the Rebel defenses at Kips Bay. 4,000 British troops storm Manhattan. Tough and battle-hardened, a British redcoat has six times more combat experience than a Patriot Army recruit. Get back in your lines! Washington watches his army collapse. Hold the line, men! They retreat along an ancient Native American path that will later be known as Broadway.
September 20th. New York, now in British hands, burns. No one knows who starts the fire... but over two days it destroys a quarter of the city. It gives you a sense of the people who wanted to be free, how much they were willing to endure. The city being burned, the city being occupied. Gives you a sense of how much they wanted freedom. More than 3,000 Patriot POWs are thrown into prison ships in New York Harbor. The most notorious is the HMS Jersey, nicknamed "Hell." One prisoner, Robert Sheffield, escaped to tell the tale. The air was so foul that at times a lamp could not be kept burning, by reason of which the bodies were not missed until they had been dead ten days. Nine in ten prisoners die. There is a memorial over in Brooklyn to those that died on British prison ships in New York Harbor. Thousands of Americans. Over the course of the war, 12,000 Patriot POWs will die in the prison ships, three times more than are killed in battle.
The loss of New York is Washington's first defeat as commander in chief. The overwhelming British force crushes the Rebel Army. Washington's only hope now rests hundreds of miles inland, with men the British know nothing about. A new type of soldier with new weapons...and new rules of war. Let's go kill us some redcoats.
By June, a new British Army of 8,000 men heads south from loyalist Canada. Its objective: Kill off the American Revolution once and for all. They're led by General John Burgoyne. An aristocrat, politician, and art lover, he's also one of the best cavalry officers in the British military. Burgoyne pushes south, following the Hudson River. His army is like a mobile city. The redcoats are accompanied by 2,000 servants, wives, and mistresses. 200 supply wagons carry 84 tons of powder and shot, as well as silver and porcelain tableware for the officers' meals. Burgoyne's plan is simple. He's traveling from St. John's in Canada 170 miles south to Saratoga, deep in the interior of the New York Colony. Then, he'll link up with the victorious British Army in New York City, cutting the colonies into two parts. But the American frontier becomes the British Army's worst enemy. The problem is they're in what we might call a counter insurgency kind of campaign, where their passage through the land and the offense that they give to farmers creates enemies wherever they go.
Now Washington unleashes revolutionary new tactics and a totally new type of soldier. Men who learned their skills on the frontier. So this army came together--an army of militia, an army of woodsmen, an army of sharpshooters, and we didn't play by the rules. British redcoats are trained for open battlefields. Now they face Rebel sharpshooters hidden in dense cover. Leading them, Daniel Morgan. Hard drinker, gambler, brawler. And now the colonel of an elite corps of 500 riflemen. He was a self-made man and he was a-- although not educated at a great school--was a smart guy, was a tough guy, and was ready and willing to step up when the time called. He was the perfect guy to show up at the perfect time.
Burgoyne's route takes him through dense forest over five times larger than all of England. Trees once intended to build British ships...now become Rebel roadblocks. The British are sitting ducks. Their advance slows to just a mile a day. The march south becomes a six-week nightmare. The sharpshooters know the land...and have technology on their side. Morgan's men are armed with American long rifles. They're light weight, with a slender barrel at least 40 inches long and fire a 50-caliber shot a half-inch wide. Based on a German hunting weapon, the guns have a unique American innovation...grooves inside the barrel that spin the shot, stabilizing it, giving it deadly accuracy. Armed with this rifle, Patriot marksman can hit a target 250 yards away, more than three times the average distance of a modern FBI sniper shot, and twice the range of the British muskets. The tide of the war is about to change.
Morgan's plan: First take out Burgoyne's Native American scouts. 400 have allied themselves with the British to preserve their ancestral lands. But Morgan and his men now use traditional Native American tactics against them. They attack using speed, stealth, and surprise. After months of guerrilla warfare, all the scouts are dead or desert behind enemy lines. Any knowledge the redcoats had of the terrain goes with them. The Rebels are rewriting the rules of war, and they're about to do it again.
1777.The American War of Independence is in its second year. New York and many parts of the colonies are in British hands. The Rebels have been driven into the wilderness. But the fight back has begun. Patriot sharpshooters target a British Army under General John Burgoyne. They've already picked off Burgoyne's Native American guides. Now the two armies meet near Saratoga.
Here the Rebels break the rules of 18th-century warfare and start targeting British officers. The plan: Leave the foot soldiers leaderless. Your officers tended to be your most educated guy. They understood the communications line, they understood exactly what the orders were. They were the source of trying to get something done on a battle space. In Britain's 53rd regiment, all but one of its 11 officers are killed or wounded. The tactic of assassinating officers appalls the British. On the defensive, the British regroup under General Simon Fraser. He brings fresh spirit to the beleaguered British Army. Daniel Morgan, commander of the sharpshooters, acts fast. Shimmy on up that tree and take out the redcoat on his high horse. His best shooter is an illiterate frontiersman from Ireland, Tim Murphy. This shot will turn the tide of the war. The first shot misses. This left.
The second skims his horse. Too high! Reload! Come on, take him out! The third hits home. You could argue that whoever fired the bullet that took out Simon Fraser did as much as any Founding Father to establish American independence. Without leadership, the British lose 1,000 men. Twice as many as the Patriots.
On October 17, 1777, General Burgoyne surrenders. It's a turning point. The victory persuades Britain's greatest rival, France, to join the war on America's side. Now the French Navy will force the British to fight a war on two fronts, land and sea. But first, Washington must face his greatest challenge as leader. He makes his winter camp in Pennsylvania at a place called Valley Forge. In freezing temperatures, the Rebels build 900 huts in just 40 days. Each houses a dozen men. He has an army of 14,000 men and no houses, and the Continental Congress has failed to provide him with resources, and by will power, by courage, by leadership, by cajoling, he has to hold the army together in the middle of a terrible winter. Joseph Plumb Martin, veteran of The Battle of New York, is at Valley Forge. It's a desolate place. We are now in a truly forlorn condition. No clothing, no provisions and as disheartened as can be. Our prospect is indeed dreary.
All right, soldier. This is gonna hurt a bit, all right? You just grit your teeth. Surgeon Albigence Waldo watches Washington's army head toward crisis. The army, which has been surprisingly healthy, now begins to grow sickly from the fatigues they have suffered from this campaign. If we don't keep this clean, you're gonna be right back in here. 1/5 of the soldiers have no shoes. With little clean water, dysentery spreads through the camp. Within weeks, 2,000 men are sick and they run out of meat. Down to their last 25 barrels of flour, the men survive on "fire cake" a mixture of flour and water.
The Rebel Army is a melting pot. As many as 60% of recruits are convicts, freed slaves and immigrants. But Washington's leadership inspires unruly men to stay in line. What he had was a confidence that if you want freedom, this is what it's gonna take. It's gonna take sacrifice, it's gonna take blood. It's gonna take cold winters at Valley Forge.
It's gonna take losses. General Washington, he was a great general, to be able to up lift his army during Valley Forge during that winter and still be able to fight. I wish I would have been there, I wish I could have fought for him because I damn sure would have. But Washington's army soon faces an enemy far more lethal than the British. Smallpox.
The revolution breaks out during the worst smallpox epidemic in US history. The deadly airborne virus spreads through the British prison ships. Isolated from the disease for generations, the American colonists have little resistance to it and there's no cure. Victims break out in blisters and sores. The virus spreads through the blood, invading healthy cells, which it kills, producing more of the virus in the process. Four in ten victims die. once smallpox arrives at Valley Forge, it spreads through the cramped huts like wildfire. Washington survived smallpox as a child. Now he decides to take a gamble...with one of the most daring experiments in US military history. Surgeons have learned about inoculation from African slaves. They harvest pus from a smallpox victim...and smear the live virus into cuts on the skin of a healthy patient. The inoculation spreads the infection, but at a slower rate. A week after exposure, the victim's white blood cells create antibodies. These attack and kill the virus that causes smallpox before the disease can spread. But it's a dangerous race against time. To survive, the patient's immune system
has to work faster than the virus, or it will run out of control. One in 50 of those inoculated will die. But Washington's gamble pays off. New cases of smallpox fall from several thousand to just a few dozen. But to win the war against the British, Washington turns to an unlikely hero who will transform his ragtag militia into a formidable fighting machine.
1778. George Washington's Patriot Army survives a hard winter and an outbreak of smallpox at Valley Forge. Now Washington introduces a new recruit who will change the course of the war. Baron von Steuben is an ex-Prussian Army officer, an elite soldier whose career is said to have been ruined by his homosexuality. But Washington makes him one of the most powerful men in his command. Washington was a genius in taking people in who didn't seem like they could achieve great things, but under him, they rose to the challenge, they rose to the occasion. And that's what great leaders do.
Von Steuben's task: Reinvent the demoralized Patriot Army so they can take on the British in a close fight. Our arms are in horrible condition, covered with rust. Our men are literally naked, some to the fullest extent of the word. Von Steuben starts by drilling discipline into Washington's ragtag recruits. The men are unlike any he has ever trained before. The genius of this nation is not in the least to be compared with that of the Prussians or Austrians or French. You say to your soldier, "Do this," And he does it. But here, I am obliged to say, "This is the reason why you ought to do that," And then he does it. Von Steuben brings order, discipline and hygiene to Valley Forge. He moves latrines away from living quarters, rebuilds the kitchens on the opposite side of the camp, and organizes housing according to regiments and companies. His biggest contribution, he writes a manual on military training, with methods that are still in use today.
Faster! Von Steuben's drills European battle tactics into an elite corps of 100 men. Up, soldier! Move! Each will train 100 more. He also teaches them a new and deadly weapon...the bayonet. Bayonet fighting will prove pivotal in the battles ahead. Bayonets allow rifles to double as spears, making close hand-to-hand combat possible without reloading. But it's not just new weapons and skills Von Steuben gives the Patriots, it's a new attitude. You know, we can talk about weapons and how certain weapons change the face of warfare, which is absolutely true, but the greatest weapon that you can ever have is right up here. Men like Plumb Martin leave Valley Forge highly skilled killers. While they retrain, another secret war has been raging in British-occupied New York.
Here, a network of spies has been busy passing information to the Rebels. Their leader is George Washington himself. A man who's come down to us in history as someone who is incapable of telling a lie, succeeds as a commander in no small measure because of his capacity for deception.
A British general will later claim that Washington did not outfight his enemies, but out-spy them. Now his French allies come under deadly threat, and only his secret army of spies can save them from disaster.
In New York, an estimated 20% of the population is still loyal to the British. Food costs are up 8%. One young woman in five is a prostitute. T o the British, New York merchant Robert T ownsend is a loyalist. A member of the loyalist militia, he writes for the loyalist press. But to Washington's spy network, his code name is "Culper Jr.," a fact that was only discovered in 1939. Culper's gang will change the course of the war.
By July 1781, New York is buzzing with rumor. A French fleet has been sighted off Rhode Island. News leaks out that the British plan to send warships from New York for a surprise attack. Culper must get word to Washington to somehow stop the British fleet. The spies use invisible ink. An advanced formula unknown to the British, the ink is made from gallic acid. It can only be revealed by brushing the paper in liquid iron sulfate.
The next link in the chain is Austin Roe, a tavern owner from Long Island. His contact, Abraham Woodhull, picks up the message and buries it at a secret drop. Another agent, Ann Smith Strong, then uses her laundry as a secret code. It signals a sailor who picks up the message and takes it to Washington. Washington moves troops towards New York, threatening the city, forcing the British fleet to stay put in New York Harbor. The French fleet sails out of danger. It will play a critical role in the next stage of the war. Now, with a spy network and a modern army backed by French naval power, Washington is ready for a final showdown. Come on!
October 1781. Six years into a war the British thought would last six months, the American Revolution comes to a head at Yorktown, Virginia. In trenches around the fortified city, Plumb Martin, now a sergeant, waits with 8,000 other Patriot soldiers for the signal to attack. Washington's army has reinvented itself...with sharpshooters...Left! with training, discipline and
new weapons...and with a spy network that has saved the French fleet, giving the Rebels dominance at sea. What remains of the British Army is under siege in Yorktown. Trapped in the city, the redcoats wait for reinforcements, but back in Britain, the war is unpopular and costing far too much money. This is a case of hanging on in the face of the--the British actions long enough to where the British literally would grow weary of this and realize that it was endless.
This is Washington's chance to end the war with one decisive blow. He committed to this idea of being able to stand on your own. See, America is a dream, and the only way to go get that dream is to show up and bring your very best to that moment and not stop until you bring that dream into existence.
Plumb Martin will be one of the first over the top. Godspeed. How are you doing, my friend? Good, how are you? I better check it out. Behind Yorktown's defenses, 9,000 battle-hardened British troops are waiting. They're protected by a series of outlying cannon forts called redoubts. By October 14th, just two remain. If they're captured and their guns turned on Yorktown, the British will be forced to surrender.
How's it look up there? It's time. All the batteries in our line lay silent. We lay anxiously waiting for the signal...Patriots race 100 yards to the British lines under fire and a hail of hand grenades. Come on! Come on! A force of 400 break through and storm the British fort. Fighting in close combat with bayonets, they beat the redcoats back. Immediately after the fighting had ceased, I went out to see what had become of my wounded friend. He was dead. 34 of Martin's comrades lie dead or wounded...but they've breached Yorktown's defenses. Two days later, the British surrender and begin negotiations for peace. For the past six years, leadership...training, weapons and intelligence have been vital. The Rebels have achieved the impossible. The United States is the only country to win independence from the British in war.
On April 30, 1789, Washington is inaugurated first president of the United States of America under the new constitution. But liberty comes at a price. Over 25,000 men have lost their lives in the battle for independence...but a new nation is born. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty...and the pursuit of Happiness.
A new country heads west, with new heroes and a new enemy...the American wilderness. The pioneers face incredible hardship...but their battles forge the American character and build the new American nation. We are pioneers...and trailblazers. We fight... for freedom. We transform our dreams into the truth. Our struggles... will become a nation.
Episode Three Westward
300 million years BC. A meteorite the size of Central Park hurtles towards Earth. With the force of 100,000 atomic bombs, it smashes into the Appalachian Mountains. The Cumberland Gap. When America passes through this gateway and conquers what lies beyond, a colony will become a continent. I think Americans have always been-- have been pioneers. We're a nation of adventurers and explorers. We are always moving forward and we're always dealing with problems, not ignoring them.
1775. Land west of the Cumberland Gap belongs to a patchwork of foreign superpowers: Britain, France, Spain. The rest occupied by hundreds of Native American tribes. 3,000 miles of fertile land. Millions of acres for anyone who can conquer it. Riches, too. Thousands of tons of gold and silver. But this land is also brutal wilderness. Conquering it requires extraordinary people.
March 1775. Daniel Boone: woodsman, hunter, freedom fighter, explorer...dreamer. Okay, men, keep clearing. Cut it through, we're coming through here. Boone and his 30 men slash through the Cumberland Gap...on a mission to tap the riches. Cut it through, we're coming through here. Before us lay the finest body of land in the world, with which little exertion we can call our own. One day thousands will desire this land, and we will be rich. But Boone's journey into the western wilderness is also a
journey into the American Soul. The frontier is a crucible, where America will define itself and forge its true character. The King of England has outlawed any Western expansion, illegal settlers rounded up and punished. Boone's already fought the British back East. Now he's defying them again. Daniel Boone was that first great action hero for America. America wanted to see itself that way, I think. They wanted to see themselves as fiercely independent, very capable and...and willing to go places most human beings wouldn't have gone.
Come on, men, this way. Boone and his men take no supplies. Come on, come on! Survival conjured from the land. Bear grease: insect repellent Wasp larvae: Food. Come on, come on! Boone records in his journal. We are exposed daily to peril and death amongst savages and wild beasts. But nature satisfies all we need. Few experience the happiness we feel here in the howling wilderness. But for the Shawnee, this is not wilderness. It is home. And they will defend it...at all costs. Good work, John, good work. These areas that seemed like wilderness to the American weren't wilderness to these American-Indian people. That was just their lands. Daniel Boone and the Shawnee have history. Only the year before, they kidnapped his eldest son, James...And tortured him to death.
On the 25th of March, 1775, Boone crosses into Shawnee territory. In the mountains for eight days...People were able to survive on this... with nothing to eat. Go, go! Go, go, run! Rifles, get 'em, come on! Ambushed, Boone must flee. His friend, Captain Twitty, and his slave Sam are both scalped and slaughtered. But Boone pushes on further west. Well, I think more than anything, the American character is perseverance. They persevered, they fought, it wasn't easy against great odds, but they had persevered. Boone's friend and companion Felix Walker writes: He conducted the company through the wilderness with such bravery. Indeed, he appeared void fear with too little caution for the enterprise. 50 of Boone's men die settling in Kentucky.
But within 20 years, 200,000 Americans pour in behind them. We were a burgeoning society. Sunddenly we realized whoa, the owner's manual says, this is all ours, keep going west. Land hunger becomes a fever Even for the government.
1803, 27 years after independence the single biggest real estate deal in history. President Tomas Jefferson buys the vast Louisiana territory from Napoleon. Half a billion acres for 3 cents an acre. Just as the America will one day go to the moon, now a mission into this unknown. Lewis and Clark wanted to see what's on the other side. Given a mountain we want to climb it. We hold those ventures of the past and great admiration.
May 1804, a presidential aid and a junior army officer set out on a mapping expedition. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark's journey is about to become one of the most epic tales of survival in American history.
The Rockies: unknown, mythical. Even woolly mammoth are fabled to roam here. Treacherous, too. No one expects the Rockies to be 90 separate mountain ranges, 3,000 miles long. They're caught in a death trap. After two weeks, starvation sets in. They eat any plants they can find. Next, they eat their horses. The expedition is given up as dead. But they survive, and they owe their survival to a 16-year-old Native American girl. Sacagawea of the Shoshone Nation guides them, finds wild food, and saves their precious million-word journals from an overturned canoe.
In 1805, William Clark notes in his journal: Ocean in view! Oh! The joy! They are the first New Americans to reach the Pacific Ocean over land. Lewis and Clark's remarkable expedition discovers 300 species of wildlife, transforming science and agriculture. But their journals record an even greater discovery, one that will forge a whole new breed of American hero.
America. East and West. The pioneering spirit of Americans has busted the continent wide-open. Lewis and Clark's heroic expedition through the Rockies uncovers a route to the West's most valuable commodity...beaver. Their pelts, frontier hard currency. Traded by Native Americans for guns, knives, salt. And they're a high-fashion luxury for the rich. They've been hunted nearly to extinction in Europe. Here they're everywhere. Millions of them. The freezing Rocky Mountain water makes the beaver pelts thicker, warmer, more expensive than other fur. New iron traps from New York foundries make catching them easier. Baited with the beaver's own scent glands, they're drawn to their death.
October 1823. 300 eager trappers roam the Rockies, searching for their fortune. One in five won't make it out alive. Trapping's harsh, hungry work. 6,000 calories a day are needed to survive the extreme conditions--three times what we eat today.
Jedediah Smith is the greatest hunter of all. 24 years old. He walks up to 1,000 miles in the Rockies each year. Traps 600 pelts in a season--three years' pay back East. Smith is a devout Christian. Doesn't drink, doesn't smoke. Bible and gun are constant companion. He's smart, works with the Native Americans. The Crow show him ancient shortcuts, sell him horses, nurse his sick men back to health. Wilderness survival. For millennia, the tribes of North America have adapted themselves to live in any condition, from arid plains to harsh mountain pass.
Jed Smith uses their knowledge and his skill to open up the West for vast fur-trapping profits. He'll die a rich man. But today he's not the hunter. He's the hunted. Jed Smith's friend James Clyman writes: The grizzly did not hesitate, springing on the captain, breaking his ribs and cutting his head. This gave us a lesson on the character of the grizzly, which we did not forget. The grizzly bear is the most deadly frontier beast. 100,000 of these terrifying killers are on the prowl. Up to ten feet tall, 1,000 pounds, they don't fear man...yet. Today there are fewer than 2,000 grizzlies in the Rockies. Halfway to death, Jed Smith's right-hand man, James Clyman, stitches his scalp and ear back to his head. I put in my needle, stitching it through and through and over and over, laying the lacerated parts together as nice as I could. There is an amazing sense of confidence as part of that American spirit that doesn't... even think about failing.
Jed Smith pushes on. This is the new character of America: frontier grit, rugged individualism, survival. And something else survives, too. The trails he forges become settler paths, wagon trains, roads and today Interstate 15. And Americans follow the new tracks west in a tidal wave of hope.
May 1846. Thousands of men, women and children. Riding, walking, pushing. They're heading for a new life 2,000 miles away. It was a land of opportunity. You can make of yourself what you want. You're only held back by your own desires. Germans, Belgians, French. Catholics, Presbyterians, Mormons. One of the world's great mass migrations begins. The pioneer spirit has moved on. In this colossal migration to Oregon and California, America will finally define its character. It's the American dream, then as now, the people want an already good life to get better. They can walk ten miles a day for up to six months straight. Some go through ten pairs of boots each. Half are children. On route, one in five of the women are pregnant. But these aren't America's poor. Families sell farms, save for five years to join the exodus, risking it all. I think if there is one episode that encapsulates the American spirit, I think it is probably the Move West.
Whip those mules and horses and cross those rivers and cross over those mountains to the unknown and say, "I'm leaving everything behind. "I'm leaving everything that I know behind to reinvent myself." A wagon and oxen cost minimum $5,000 in today's money. But it buys a complete life-support machine. The wagons carry a precious cargo, 1,000 pounds of supplies and a grubstake for your journey, your entire new life in the West. The pioneering spirit is ingenious. Essential drinking water captured from rain on the wagon canvas. Even the oxen's dung is fuel for fires. And like today, there are tolls. Native Americans charge $10 for road and $100 for river crossings, in modern money. But the greatest toll of all...human lives. In all, 20,000 Americans will die reaching the West. Ten graves for every mile. But one story of suffering and death will show just how far the pioneers will go to conquer the West.
June 1846. A wagon train heads west. Its leader is George Donner. Good luck. Good, now push! Push! His wife, T amsen Donner, is a school teacher. Yes, okay. But on the trail, women must turn their hands to anything. The Donner Party are halfway across the blistering Wyoming Prairie, miles from the nearest doctor, with barely any water. Good, yes. Okay. I think the women who came across America in the early days, must've been made up of the stro ngest fiber possible. “It's unimaginable.” Good. Yes.
The new American's mother and father are Philippine and Ludwig Keseberg. They christen their son Louis. The journey is tough... but the going's good. T amsen Donner writes in her journal: I could never believe we could have traveled so far with so little difficulty. Indeed if we do not experience anything worse, I shall say the trouble is all in getting started. But as leader of the wagon train, T amsen's husband, George Donner, is aware there's one final obstacle to their journey. The Sierra Nevada. Peaks up to 14,000 feet. Fail to clear the mountain passes before the first snow falls and the consequences are terrifying.
But as the Donner Party approaches Utah, George Donner makes a fateful decision, leading a splinter group off from the main party. He's read one of the many new trail guidebooks, showing a shortcut that claims to shave two weeks off the journey time. Hastings Cutoff is said to be a saving of 400 miles. We are informed it is a fine, level road with plenty of water and grass. But Donner's information is wrong. In fact, the "Shortcut" adds 100 miles to the journey. High in the Sierra Nevada, the Donner Party enters the Truckee Pass. They're only 30 miles from the California plains. But supplies are dangerously low, and traveling through the mountains is taking its toll. A broken axle. The Donner Party stops to make repairs. But that night... 5 feet of snow falls. Soon the drifts are 60 feet deep. The Donner Party will be stranded for five months. In just three weeks, they've eaten all their food. Then they kill their pack animals. Next, they eat charred bones, twigs, bark, leaves, dirt... and worse. Even the wind held its breath as the suggestion was made that were one to die, the rest might live. Cannibalism.
Christmas 1846. They eat their first human. Bodies are cut up, flesh labeled, so people don't eat their own kin. Four rescue parties bring out some survivors. The very last finds Philippine's husband Ludwig, alone. He is surrounded by bones, entrails, and a 2-gallon kettle of human blood. George Donner's body is found, skull split open, his brain removed. T amsen Donner's body is never found. The pass is renamed the "Donner Pass," testament to the hardship of the pioneers' push west. Today it's the Lincoln Highway. Thousands drive this road every year. But beneath the bones of the Donner Party, the Sierra Nevada conceals a seam of gold. Largest the world has yet seen. Gold fever is about to change the West, and the American character yet again.
March 1836. Texas, the Alamo. The American nation is expanding, growing stronger, bigger. But there's something else out there even bigger, even stronger: Mexico--a superpower. A colossal empire stretching from Oregon to Guatemala. But Texas is disputed territory. The Mexican government has invited American settlers in, but are soon overwhelmed by the flood of pioneers. Americans, by the thousands, were coming into Texas and they were not abiding to the agreements to come in as settlers. And once they out number-- by 1835 Mexicans ten to one in that area, of course the Americans are thinking about independence. The Alamo is where Mexico tries to stem the flood. The shots that killed Davy Crockett and his fellow settlers echoed across America. The women and children are spared, sent back to send the Mexican message, "Don't come." But America hears something else. "Remember the Alamo."
A turning point.
America will now wage war to go West. Texas is won, California fought and bought. The same month California becomes American, it becomes the nation's greatest prize. Volcanic magma. Over millions of years, in a fault zone beneath the Sierra Nevada, cooling and pressure create quartz. And within the quartz, gold. The seam is one of the densest on the planet. Rocks erode and the riches are released.
1848. Carpenter James Marshall finds a 3-ounce nugget in the California river. Two months' pay in his hand, but billions of dollars beneath his feet. News of Marshall's discovery spreads to every corner of the world. In California, you can taste the American dream: get rich quick. Within a year, 100,000 desperate amateur prospectors flood the Sierra foothills. It was the American dream distilled to its essence. T ake yourself and go out and try and make a success of it. A Chinese prospector's 100-ounce strike in the Yuba River. $26,000 made by a single Irishman in just four days. A $200,000 super seam mined by 12 Mexicans at Bear Valley. In the port of San Francisco, a plot of land worth $16 before the gold strike now changes hands for $45,000. In two years, the population of California explodes from 15,000 to 100,000. Now, hand-panning is replaced by lines of sluice boxes desperately combing for anything the first prospectors missed. And the price of living rocket. Picks, pans, shovels go from a few cents to $10 a piece. Breakfast costs ten times what it does back East. But still the people come. 200 abandoned ships in San Francisco harbor, the crews deserting, rushing for the hills. He's traveled 6,000 miles. He's spent all his money. Now he travels by foot.
Belgian Jean-Nicolas Perlot writes: We crossed 200 miles of wilderness full of Indians, bears, panthers, wildcats, snakes of every kind. The first thing he finds isn't gold. It's graves. 200 of them. Prospectors cut off by rains in the foothills, starved to death. Approaching, we realized animals of some kind had dug up the bodies. I read a note attached to one of the graves. "God has willed that civilization should begin in this place, With this duty which a man owes to his kind. Bury the dead."
Perlot does find gold, but never in the quantities that he'd dreamed. As the gold fields are picked clean, tensions rise, times get tougher. After just five years, the Gold Rush is over. I think that there is that Western mentality of prospecting-- try and fail, try and fail, and the fact that you tried is worthy in and of itself. Of 300,000 who rush to find gold, less than one out of 100 struck it rich. But fortunes were made by the merchants and landowners who supplied the miners. From dirt and dreams came the great cities of California. Both the West and the American character that built it are settled. Now this new powerhouse will face another revolution.
October 1818. A nine-year-old boy comforts his mother as she lies on her deathbed. Milk sickness kills thousands of pioneers every year. The cause: White Snakeroot eaten by cattle, the deadly poison passed in milk to humans. At 18, the boy becomes a man, but he has been working like a man for years, battling for existence in this harsh environment. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. I had an ax in my hand from my eighth to my 20th year. This is the life of American settler stock. The young man's grandfather followed Daniel Boone's Wilderness Road into Kentucky. His father pushed further into the primeval forests of Indiana. Settler families of ten or more live in log cabins built from scratch. Single roomed, basic. The trailer homes of the day. The wilderness provides everything. They make their own rakes, forks, shovels, build their own furniture. And they bury their dead. In bad years, malaria kills one in eight of the settlers. Life expectancy is half of what it is today. But from adversity comes strength. This settler's name is Abraham.
If you work hard, you can do anything you wanna do. The possibilities are endless. To me, that was the American dream, as a kid. Lincoln's family and thousands like theirs have settled the West in four generations. President Thomas Jefferson thought it would take 1,000. The forests are cleared: five acres a family, a year. In 1800, 23 million acres of Indiana is wilderness. In 60 years, it's tamed, flat, fertile farmland. But there is more than forest to clear. It's always been one of the deep flaws of the American imagination, that they can't imagine a future for American-Indian people as Americans. American-Indian people have to imagine that for themselves, and that's the hard part. Keep walking.
1830. Frontier president Andrew Jackson declares a new policy, a policy that America will maintain for more than 100 years. The forced relocation of American tribal people onto reservations. You, keep moving! After years of Supreme Court battles, the bill passes Congress by a single vote. Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole, Cherokee, all forced off their nations by the point of a bayonet. An episode in the conquest of the West that even some of the soldiers taking part find shameful. US Army Private John G. Burnett writes: The sufferings of the Cherokee were awful. The trail of the exiles was a trail of death. They slept in the wagons and on the ground without fire. I saw as many as 20 die in a single night of pneumonia, cold exposure. Move along.
The march of 1,000 miles becomes the Trail of Tears. It's a shameful act in American history and it's, in its own way, sort of an iconic act because it really symbolizes what happened to the Native Americans. The West is open for business, but key to the transformation of the region is a river 2,000 miles in length, fed by rainfall from 31 states. Running from Minnesota to New Orleans, the Mighty Mississippi. It's a lifeline connecting the West to the outside world. If roads exist, they're muddy tracks. This is the only trade artery, the interstate, that allows the pioneers and settlers to sell the produce they've sweated over. A huge amount of goods are shipped out, but they're shipped out in the most nickel-and-dime way. A farmer will build a flatboat, fill it up with hogs, sassafras root, ginseng root, tobacco whatever it is you grow--put it on the flatboat, use the power of the Mississippi to drift you down to sell them along the riverbank.
Aged 19, Abraham Lincoln makes his first trip down the Mississippi, poling his simple raft. The current is too strong to return upstream. The primitive flatboats are simply sold as lumber in New Orleans. Farmers have to walk the 800 miles home and begin again. But on that first journey, Lincoln sees the future. A new invention which will transform the Mississippi, the Midwest, and America.
The steamboat was the 19th century's time machine, just as surely as the airplane was the 20th century's time machine. It shrunk distance. By shrinking distance, it enabled commerce. Even upstream, steamboats can travel 50 miles a day, eight times faster, eight times the cargo of a raft. But they're deadly. Over half the early models explode, maiming and killing hundreds. But their number triples every decade. They make the Midwest America's economic powerhouse. Within 20 years, St. Louis alone
swells from a few hundred to a population of 16,000. Over four generations, America has grown from a 100-mile-wide strip of colonies on the Eastern Seaboard to a continental powerhouse.
America is exploding across the continent. The economy is booming. Cotton in the South... industry in the North. But the new nation is divided. In the land where all men are created equal... 4 million black Americans live as slaves. And it's tearing the nation apart. We are pioneers... and trailblazers. We fight... for freedom. We transform our dreams into the truth. Our struggles... will become a nation.
Episode Four Division
1825. All over the world, the modern era is being born. It's the Industrial Revolution. America is racing to catch up. In upstate New York, a man-made river is cutting through the wilderness. The Erie Canal is the biggest construction project in the Western world in the last 4,000 years. Over 300 miles long, dug entirely by hand, and America lacks a single qualified engineer. The United States of America isn't about to let nature stand in its way.
I think of the spirit of America being imagination combined with tenacity. There's a strong work ethic, a wonderful freedom of creation, combined with the mental muscle and physical labor. So to me, it represents the best of the human spirit. But the land doesn't always cooperate. A wall of solid limestone 60 feet high. Just 30 miles from the finish line, Lake Erie. The canal will change everything, linking the Atlantic Ocean to the whole middle of America. It changes where people live, and why, and turns the North into a global economic powerhouse. The man behind the canal is New York's gung-ho governor, Dewitt Clinton.
Born to wealth, he won't take no for an answer. He wants to be president. Instead, he runs New York for 20 years. America was blessed with many inspirational leaders, and I think Dewitt Clinton had a real sense of how important new York could be for America. Clinton's vision: to make New York rich. Politically, the canal is a huge gamble. It's savaged in the press as dangerous and too expensive. They call it "Clinton's big ditch." But it will change New York forever.
It is a work more stupendous, more magnificent, and more beneficial than has hither to been achieved by the human race. Entrepreneurship is about doing things when you don't know what it's gonna look like, you don't know what it's gonna be made of, you just have this instinct that you can do it and it'll work. Those guys had visions and did it. 50,000 men. 11 million cubic yards of rock. Enough to fill the Rose Bowl 26,000 times. Crews are filled with Irish immigrants. David Gilroy makes five times what he can earn back home, but it's hazardous work. They're literally moving mountains, and there's only one way through-- gunpowder. A highly combustible mix of nitrate, charcoal and sulfur. The wrong proportions can be lethal. There's only one job that's more dangerous than lighting the fuse... going back to relight it.
To cope, workers drink. Whiskey calms the nerves-- and clouds the brain. An English tourist can't believe they're mixing alcohol and explosives. The Irish laborers grew so reckless of life, that at the signal for blasting, they would just hold their shovels over their heads. I think when you're brought up in America, you're brought up on the history of hard work. There are so many immigrants that have died to build this country. That's in our bloodstream, that's in our DNA as Americans. We don't want their lives to go in vain. Because of that, we usually work harder than anybody else. Eight years of digging. Nearly a thousand lives lost. $7 million, more than 100 million today. The Erie Canal opens in 1825, a miracle of engineering, connecting East and Midwest. It's an instant economic superhighway. $15 million of goods a year flow along the canal. Villages along the canal boom into dynamic cities-- Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester.
Goods crash in price, up to 95%. A frontier that had to be self-sufficient can now buy anything they want. Prosperity is on the move. New York City becomes a boomtown. Wall Street takes off as a global financial center. The city quadruples in size... and surpasses New Orleans as the nation's number-one port. There's so much money around, the word "Millionaire" is invented in 1840. The Erie Canal still shapes New York today. 80% of the upstate population still lives within 25 miles of it. Hundreds of miles to the south, a small plant is creating another economic boom. Cotton. But this one will eventually tear the nation apart. Cotton is native to tropical regions, making the Southern states of the US a perfect breeding ground. The valued part is the
soft fiber which grows tightly around the shrub's sticky seeds. There are 30 species worldwide. Growing it is no problem, but processing the fiber before it can be spun into cloth is labor-intensive. Especially, separating the seeds. For years, it could only be done by hand. One pound took an entire day.
A simple patent filed on March 4, 1794, changes all that. The cotton gin. It automates the process and deeply divides the country. The cotton gin transformed not only America, but the world. The concept of mass production using a machine just exploded everywhere. One man can now process 50 times more cotton. Output skyrockets all over the South. In 1830, America is producing half the world's cotton. By 1850, it's nearly 3/4. Called white gold, cotton supports a new lavish lifestyle in the South. By 1850, there are more millionaires per capita in Natchez, Mississippi, than anywhere else on Earth. The richest man in town owns 40,000 acres, nearly three times the size of Manhattan Island.
The South is thriving on the backs of humans owning other humans. It's called slavery. The North is implicated in the South's success. The industrial North is profiting from Southern cotton, but turns a blind eye to slavery. Many of them slave owners themselves, the Founding Fathers assumed slavery would soon disappear. Slavery has already been abolished for 20 years in Britain and is outlawed across most of Europe. But with the cotton explosion, slavery becomes critical to the Southern economy. Each slave is now 50 times more profitable. A slave who sold for $300 before the cotton gin goes for nearly 2,000 by 1860. People don't really realize this, but slavery was actually on the decline in the South prior to the invention of the cotton gin, but then once the cotton gin made it so practical to grow cotton, all of a sudden, every farmer in the South wanted to plant as much cotton as possible. But overproduction is destroying the land. Cotton heads west in search of fertile soil, bringing slavery with it. But antislavery forces in the North want to keep the frontier free. The stage is set for the first battles in the war over slavery.
Cotton is changing the way Americans live. In time, it will blow the nation apart. For the South, cotton is a gold mine. Now the North wants a piece of the action. It's a partnership that makes everyone rich, based on a new machine, the power loom. Raw cotton comes in, finished cloth goes out. All under one roof. The modern factory is born. Lowell, Massachusetts, is called the city of spindles, a textiles boomtown. Population explodes from 200 in 1820 to nearly 20,000 in just 15 years. More than a third of the town works in the mills. 85% are single women between 15 and 25.
Harriet Robinson is ten. When her father dies, she goes to work at the mill. I can see myself now, racing down the alley, between the spinning frames, carrying in front of me a bobbin box bigger than I was. Women earn money for the first time. Harriet's wages help support her family. Industrialization is changing everyone's lives. All the mill girls make good use of their money. The mortgage is lifted from the homestead, the farmhouse is painted. Mill girls help maintain widowed mothers and drunken or invalid fathers. We were paid $2 a week. Oh, how proud I was when it came to my turn to stand up on the bobbin-box. When women really joined the workforce in the cotton mills and the thread factories, I think it gave women an opportunity to get out, be serious about being bread winners. And it changed the whole fabric of America.
The mills also revolutionize how Americans dress. Mass production of cheap cotton fabrics spawns America's clothing industry. Previously, most families made their own clothes. Now, people buy ready-to-wear. Eastern fashions replace buckskin. By 1850, men's clothing is the largest manufacturing industry in New York City. For me, what makes me proudest to be an American is that American spirit of productivity, optimism, this idea that the world doesn't have to be doom and gloom, that we can use technology to make our lives better. Fashion isn't the only innovation to come out of the mills. Technology developed here will lead straight to Silicon Valley. Looms pioneer punch cards to produce patterned fabric. Each hole in the card tells the loom to use a different-colored thread, a yes-no decision. It's binary code, the basis of all modern computers. The birth of the computer and Internet began in cotton mills with these looms. You know, in every major development, I think, in the history of America, technology has been at the center of it.
Despite 12-hour shifts, the factories offer a new world of opportunity for women. They are reading more, talking more, educating themselves. Yeah, reading books on factory time was against the rules, but we hid books in apron pockets and waste baskets. Sometimes we pasted poems on our looms to memorize. And for the first time in America, their voices are heard.
October 1836. Women from the Lowell Mills gather after work and organize. Their protest against wage cuts is one of the first strikes in US history. And they will win. The mill boss is back down. A generation of young women go on to become teachers, writers and even college graduates. Harriet Robinson will become a leading suffragette, and testify before Congress. They're the first wave in a movement that results in women getting the vote. Their secret meetings at night are only possible with the light from lamps powered by an extraordinary creature. Whale oil opened up the night, and like so many really transformative technological innovations, it expanded human freedom. It created a way for people to get more, do more and achieve more. Crude oil won't be discovered for another 20 years. Until then, America runs on whale oil.
The whaling industry helped invent part of the Industrial Revolution and the classic American workaholic
work-round-the-clock kind of environment, where if you have more light to keep you going in those dark winter days, you could get more done, you could make more money, and you could kind of drive the economy forward.
Whales are among the largest creatures to ever live on Earth. Up to 180 tons and more than 100 feet long. A single whale can produce up to 3,000 gallons of oil. Even today, whale oil is used by NASA. The Hubble space telescope runs on it.
Whaling is one of the North's biggest industries, bringing in $11 million a year. But the human cost is also high. Half of all ships will eventually be lost at sea. Few men are willing to take the risk. But it's an opportunity for African-Americans. 20,000 freemen and escaped slaves take to the seas. John Thompson is a runaway from Maryland. I have a family in Philadelphia. But fearing to remain there any longer, I thought I would go on a whaling voyage where I stood least chance of
being arrested by slave hunters.
The equal opportunity offered in whaling is ahead of its time. Here, a colored man is only known and looked upon as a man and is promoted in rank according to his ability and skill to perform the same duties as a white man. The whaling industry offered an ex-slave like John Thompson the possibility of socialand economic fluidity, mobility and acceptance in a way. Even in the North, that was not possible for black people otherwise.
The man on the lookout cried out, "There she blows!" There were four whales in sight, not more than 3/4 of a mile distant. It takes hours to kill them. They use state-of-the-art harpoons invented by runaway slave Lewis Temple. The whale can only be killed by lancing him under the fin, which is a work of much skill and practice. A monster, terrible in his fury, able to shiver the boat in atoms by one stroke of his tail. And yet even the dangers at sea are preferable to the horror of life as a slave. Punishment is savage for those who risk escape, but some will do anything to be free.
1841, New Orleans. Ground zero for the slave trade. It's auction day. The day every slave fears the most. In the first half of the 19th century, over half a million slaves are sold at auction. It's a business worth $2 billion to the Southern economy. Since the cotton boom, the value of slaves has skyrocketed. Now men cost $1,000. Women, 800. Children, 500.
Solomon Northup, an educated freeman from the North, was kidnapped into slavery. You, come over here. He would make us hold up our heads, walk us briskly back and forth, while customers would feel our hands and arms and bodies, make us open up our mouths and show our teeth, precisely as a jockey examines a horse, which he is about to barter for or purchase. Scars upon a slave's back were considered evidence of a rebellious or unruly spirit, and hurt his sale. T ake your top off. 90% of all African-Americans are slaves, 4 million men, women and children.
We had based this country on everyone having inalienable rights to freedom and equality, and yet we created a system of abject persecution. Slaves are fattened for auction, like livestock. Dark-skinned men are bought for the fields, light-skinned women for the house. Traders lie about their ages, even dye a slave's gray hairs. For the plantation owners, it was like just going to your local supermarket to get sugar or flour. They had become so desensitized to the humanity of the slave that they did not see them as human beings. Buyers demand the most fertile slaves for breeding. The most expensive are light-skinned teenage virgins. Rape is common. Eliza's from a state plantation. She's being sold, with her two children, Emily and Randall. In Louisiana, it's illegal for children under 11 to be taken from their parents. Boy, come over here. It happens all the time. Show
me your teeth.
You know, 140 years is not a really long time in the context of history. So it's hard for me to believe that blacks didn't have any rights here, they weren't treated as human beings, they were treated like animals, essentially.
Sir, please! Over half the sales at auction will tear a family apart. If you've ever been eight, to think of being separated from your mother and your father and sold and you'll never see them again. The horror of that, the poignancy of all of that, and yet that's the kind of thing that happened across the South up until the end of slavery. Okay, my final offer, I'll give you 1,000 for that man, 900 for that man. That woman there, $700. Please, buy my child! Sir! Sir! I have seen mothers kissing for the last time the faces of their dead offspring, but never have I seen such an exhibition of intense grief as when Eliza was parted from her child.
Three miles outside Baltimore heading North. A slave on the run. The risk of capture is high. At most, 1,000 a year are successful. Ears cut off; achilles tendons slashed; branding; all are common punishments if caught. Frederick Douglass has failed twice, but won't let that stop him. Men like Douglass are the South's worst nightmare. He has a better chance than most of passing as a freeman. Unlike 80% of slaves, he can read and write. Even in the 21st century, we're only three or four generations away from people that not only could not get paid for their labor, it was against the law for them to read and write, it was against the law for them to marry, it was against the law for them to name their children after themselves.
Ladies and gentlemen, please. Long way to go. Ticket. Black Americans must carry documents proving they're free, or who they belong to. Frederick Douglass has papers borrowed from a friend. Ticket. They won't hold up to careful examination. My whole future depended on the decision of this conductor. Someone get this chicken. This moment of time was one of the most anxious I ever experienced. Had he looked closely at the paper, he could not have failed to discover that it called for a very different-looking person from myself.
Frederick Douglass makes it to New York City--and freedom, and becomes a leading figure in the anti slavery movement. He'll write a best-selling autobiography. He'll meet and debate with Lincoln in the White House. At a time when slaves are barely regarded as people, he will become an icon, a celebrity, the best-known African-American in America.
The best hope for escaped slaves is the legendary Underground Railroad and the tireless efforts of Harriet Tubman. An escaped slave herself, she risks her life returning South again and again to guide others to freedom. A masterful escape artist, Tubman will do anything to avoid capture, even keeping babies quiet with opium.
That's a good boy. Harriet Tubman is the Moses of our people. She was a wanted woman, she was a hated woman, reviled by the white South. Just imagine you've gotten out of slavery, you've escaped, and yet you come back, you have the courage and the care about other people to come back into a hell. The South puts a $40,000 reward on her head, but nothing stops her. Come on, you all! Come on! Move or die.
Tubman is one of America's first civil-rights activists. In the same month she dies, Rosa Parks is born. Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman threaten everything the South stands for. Tens of thousands of slave owners had to deal with, for the first time, the fact that these people are going to rebel. She was far more effective as the symbol that they feared than the few hundred that she saved. Nearly 60,000 slaves will escape, up to a $50 million loss to their owners, but it symbolizes much more. Now the South has a fight on its hands, and they're prepared to do whatever it takes to preserve their way of life. The fight for the soul of a nation is just getting started.
Midway through the 19th century, America is entering the modern world. In 20 years, there'll be Levi's Jeans, chewing gum and hot dogs. But the nation is split, being torn apart at the seams dividing North and South. Slavery became not simply a political issue, not simply an economic issue, but a moral issue as well. It became the issue that defined North and South in the 1850s.
September 1850. The Fugitive Slave Law brings the brutality of Southern Slavery to the North. Now, no African-American is
safe, anywhere. Gentlemen, you've made a mistake. This is a place of business. I'm a tailor, these are my clients. I'm a freeman. I'm not a slave, gentlemen. The Fugitive Slave Law meant that if you were a slave and you managed to escape to the North, your master could come and get you, and you had no recourse. Not only that, if you were a free Negro, they still could sell you down the river.
The search for runaway slaves had become a witch hunt. Any African-American can be condemned simply with an accusation. Even a freeman has no right to a trial by jury.
Federal magistrates get $10 to rule them slaves, five to set them free. Ordinary people are outraged by the new law. Abolitionist newspapers and literature spread like wildfire. Published in 1852,"Uncle Tom's Cabin" becomes the best-selling book of the century, after the Bible. A passionate antislavery novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, an unknown housewife from Connecticut. It mainly appeals to women who are becoming politicized for the first time.
Slavery is the burning issue of the day. As America expands across the continent, North and South face off over each new territory. Will it be slave-owning or free? The Northerners began to see that, wait a minute, they're not gonna keep slavery just in the South, they wanna take slavery West and to turn the country into a slave country. Americans from all over the country are flooding into the new territories on the frontier. Each becomes a battleground. Will it be slave-owning or free?
It comes to a head in Kansas. A peaceful protetest turns violent. Emotions run high. Towns are terrorized, stores robbed. Homesteads burned. North and South are polarized. Neither side will back down.
One man will stop at nothing to abolish slavery. John Brown. A folk hero in the North...a terrorist to the South. He thinks he's fighting a holy war. He believes himself to be God's chosen instrument. He will murder for his cause. John Brown is one of those controversial figures about whom almost anything you can say is true. He's a terrorist, in our modern terms. He's a revolutionary.
The divide between North and South is an open wound. Kansas bleeds for two years, more than 200 dead. America is on the road to war. Slavery is tearing the nation apart. America is built on a number of distinct fault lines, one, of course, was slavery and freedom, that was a fault line that had to be addressed. In the South, slavery is a way of life, even for non-slave owners. Antislavery forces in the North threaten their right to decide their fate. There is still, in some areas of America, a great pride in being Southern and holding true to the original Southern attitude. I think our clinging to the idea that slavery is a right and just a way of life, you know, it is a dark spot in our history. Anger in the South grows more passionate every day. The North claims the moral high ground, but they are getting rich off cotton, too.
Pretty much everybody agreed that a crisis was developing. Not everyone knew that, the crisis would include, in the end, the Civil War, but everyone understood that a showdown between the slave South and the free North was about to occur.
John Brown wants to light the fuse. October 1859. Passionate in his hatred of slavery, Brown prepares to take the fight into the heart of the South. His plan, to capture the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, the biggest collection of weapons in the South. 20,000 rifles, muskets and pistols, worth almost $7 million today. He wants to arm Southern slaves and lead a slave rebellion. He's fighting alongside his five sons, all of them willing to die for their cause. The arsenal is poorly defended. Breaking in is a pushover. But his raid is based on local slaves rising up and joining the fight. He needs a small army to carry off so many weapons. Without slave reinforcements, it's a suicide mission. Word gets out and local townsfolk attack the arsenal. Not a single slave joins Brown and his men. They are trapped and fighting for their lives.
I wanna free all Negroes in this state. I have possession of the United States armory, and if the citizens interfere with me, I must only burn the town and have blood.
Radical abolitionist John brown is trying to inspire a slave revolt. No slaves have joined him, and now he's trapped. At dawn, the US Marines arrive. They storm the arsenal under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee. Brown won't go down without a
fight. The soldiers overwhelm them. The fight against slavery has only just begun. But John Brown's crusade is over. His sons are dead. His trial captivates the country. Charged as a criminal, he puts the institution of slavery on trial. America is fatally divided. Brown is convicted of treason and sentenced to death. A terrorist in the South, a martyr in the North. He's executed on December 2, 1859.
As the country prepares to elect a new president in 1860, many wonder if the nation can survive. I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.
Chicago, May 18, 1860. A backwoods congressman comes out of nowhere to grab the new Republican Party's nomination for President. Abe Lincoln's only claim to fame--he's lost two elections to the Senate. Personally, Lincoln hates slavery, but he is desperate to hold the country together. What I admire about Abraham Lincoln is that he had his beliefs and he stuck to his beliefs at a time when it was't popular to do so, especially when it was black, white and very cut-and-dry, he stuck to his beliefs.
November 6, 1860. Election Day. The stakes couldn't be higher. Abraham Lincoln will be elected president of a country hurtling towards war. The South rebels, convinced he'll abolish slavery. They threaten to leave the Union. The battle lines are drawn. The North is behind him.
For the South, Lincoln is the enemy. An editorial in an Atlanta paper "Let the consequences be what they may. Whether the Potomac is crimsoned in human gore and Pennsylvania Avenue is paved ten fathoms with mangled bodies, the South will never submit to such humiliation and degradation as the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln."
The South knew that Lincoln was gonna win, and it was just a matter of time, tick, tick, tick, before secession occurred. The South wants no part of a Union with Lincoln in the White House. But as he prepares to take office, the President-elect is still determined to avoid a civil war.
Lincoln was not happy about slavery. He did not see that as congruent to "All men are created equal." And he had given a speech, before he ever became president, on why that was so important to him. And I think that was coming to a head, and when he got elected, that was the final straw for the South.
December 20, 1860.South Carolina secedes from the Union. The ten other slave states soon follow. Lincoln's victory makes war inevitable. He's prepared to fight to preserve the Union--and won't have to wait long.
In February 1861, a few weeks before his inauguration, the Confederate States of America are born. Lincoln's principal objective was to save the Union and then we'll deal with slavery, but before too long, he had to both save the Union and deal with slavery.
Abraham Lincoln receives his first death threats before ever taking office. He'll save every one, keeping a file in his desk labeled: "Assassination." On the journey to Washington, he'll wear a disguise, just to be safe. He'll do anything to avoid war, except allow slavery to expand. It is Lincoln who explains the case for freedom and says, "I'm not gonna attack slavery where it is, but I'm not gonna let it expand."
At his inauguration, Abraham Lincoln reluctantly pledges that states with slaves will be allowed to keep them, but it's too little, too late. A virtual state of war already exists. The South mobilizes an army of 800,000 men against a Union army of 2 and half Million.
Five weeks after Abraham Lincoln takes office, the first shots are fired in the War Between the States. It will spark a brutal and bloody civil war, the deadliest in American history. In the next four years, more lives will be lost than in all America's other wars put together.
初遇的唯美句子 导读：唯美句子初遇的唯美句子 1、听着这委婉动人的旋律，想起我们最美丽的相遇！今生能在手机短信上遇到你，是我今生最美丽的相遇。 2、相逢是缘相知最美相爱是罪相守最累!爱到不能爱时说分手，到底是谁辜负了谁?相逢的日子淡如水，谁爱谁都无所谓。因为那个时候，谁也不是谁的谁，海阔天空自由飞。 3、遇见，是一种缘分，也许是我们前世的那一次擦肩而过或是那一次回眸一笑。既然这缘分如此珍贵，那就让我们彼此珍惜遇见的这一刻，永存心里，创造属于我们的故事。 4、在相遇时，我们早已错过了人生中最美的花期！错的时间，对的人，注定是一个无言的结局。 5、蓦然回首，相遇你，我惟用无悔，去温柔的埋葬那一段清音流年。月字成缺，站在孤独的夜空下，醉酒长啸，泪语问苍天，这暗流滚滚如江海的尘世间，还有多少人在思念疯长的深夜里孤独而又难过的哭泣？ 6、如果有一天，你的记忆中没有了我，不要忘记我们相遇的每分每秒。 7、生活中独具风采的男人女人，若再与文字沾上点边，想来更具魅力。一个人的思想文化修养，也提高了一个档次。有人感叹生活中缺少好男人，好的爱情也总是与自己错身。但只要你把目光放得柔和些，把行走的步调放得满些，也许就在未来的某一瞬间里，有那么
一次美丽的懈逅。 8、这个世间，谁都不会是谁永远的美丽，生命中有很多相遇，能在一起的叫朋友，不能在一起叫过客。 9、不晓得你会什么时候出现，但是我相信，我们一定会彼此相遇，相爱，相知，相许，相守一生。也许我们都曾为爱受伤，或许都已对爱失望，甚至不再相信爱情了，你的姗姗来迟，使得我怀疑是否还是可以遇到值得的另一半。如果你不开心，心情郁闷了，一定是要告诉我，我会陪你，和你在一起。 10、假如人生不曾相遇，我不会相信，有一种人可以百看不厌，有一种人一认识就觉得温馨。 11、这一次相遇，美得彻骨，美得震颤，美得孤绝，美得惊艳。 12、或许，我们的相遇注定只是今生的擦肩而过，就像某个特定的镜头里，上演了某个特定的情节，而本该彼此相爱的归宿到最后却变成了彼此的麻木。 13、岁月慢慢流逝，所有的东西都会消失殆尽，包括那些曾经的爱恋，离别的思念。但空气中弥散的气息还是会留存，往事还是会历历在目，就让我们给彼此留一段美好的回忆。 14、用一朵花开的时间相遇，在我最美好的年华里，用我最美好的姿态，遇见你。 15、我一生中最幸运的两件事、一件是时间终于将我对你的爱消耗殆尽；一件是很久很久以前有一天，我遇见你。 16、一个生灵与另一个生灵的相遇是千载一瞬，分别却是万劫不
关于青春无悔的优美句子 1.青春已经远了，我早已听君诉说;旅行已经远了，我也在浅偿辄止的浮图里看明;我现在留有的也只是那一卷卷犹记在心里的寂寞诗书。 2.青春是一场远行，回不去了。青春是一场相逢，忘不掉了。但青春却留给我们最宝贵的友情。友情其实很简单，只要那么一声简短的问候一句轻轻的谅解一份淡淡的惦记，就足矣。当我们在毕业季痛哭流涕地说出再见之后，请不要让再见成了再也不见。 3.青春气贯长虹，勇锐盖过怯懦，进取压倒苟安。如此锐气，弱冠后生有之，耳顺之年，则亦多见，年岁有加，并非垂老;理想丢弃，方堕暮年。 4.真正的美丽，不是青春的容颜，而是绽放的心灵;不是俏丽的服饰，而是内在的自信;不是物质的附庸，而是知识的光芒……真正的美丽，多是夹带着生活的余香，浸润着岁月的辙痕，承载着我们的希翼。 5.我们不断挥霍着那宝贵的青春，如落叶般，不能最早见到彩云。那是一种怎样的场景，那是一种怎样的心境。
6.人生，短暂，愿即将远去青春，在有限的生命中，不求辉煌，如它，亦可! 7.绿色象征着生命，青春的绿色使我们的人生有意义，有价值。鲜绿色万丈生机，浅绿色实实在在，墨绿色轰轰烈烈……它就如一粒充实的种子，在人生的土壤中萌发，最终见得天日，再现生机。 8.多姿的青春，迷茫的青春，懵懂的青春，落泪的青春，责任的青春，青春的婀娜，青春的美妙全部撒播在了沿途的风景之中，迷茫，酸楚，欢声笑语在记忆的天空中承载着梦想而飞翔，青春才成了心中的永恒。 9.青春，令人寻味。花儿曾经在枝头绽放，美得让蝶流连，让人赞叹，但花儿知道，再美的生命也会有渐衰的容颜。同样，再美的青春也自有消失的一天。不禁感叹，既然青春终究会失去，又何必在乎曾经拥有呢? 10.我们的故事未曾熬过几年春秋，你也总是来了又走。 11.那些睁不开眼的，就是会成为镜头下美好的逆光。那些正在熬的，是会成为人生里明朗的印迹。 12.她拿着烈酒在大街上走她之所以爱上烟酒爱上放荡因为
History and Anthology of American Literature Part I The Literature of Colonial America 1.Historical Introduction ·The first permanent English settlement in North America was established at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. ·Among the members of the small band of Jamestown settlers was Captain John Smith. His reports of exploration have been described as the first distinctly American literature written in English. 2.Early New England Literature ·The American poets who emerged in the 17 century adapted the style of established European poets to the subject matter confronted in a strange, new environment. Anne Bradstreet was one such poet. John Smith 1.The first American writer. 2.Works: (1)A true Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony (2)A Map of Virginia with a Description of the Country (3)The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles William Bradford & John Winthrop 1.William Bradford: 曾任普利茅斯总督 ·Work: Of Plymouth Plantation《普利茅斯垦殖记》 2.John Winthrop: 曾任马萨诸塞湾总督，波士顿总督 ·Work: The History of New England from 1630 to 1649《新英格兰历史：1630-1649》 John Cotton & Roger Williams 1.John Cotton: 清教徒牧师和作家 ·The first major intellectual spokesman of Massachusetts Bay Colony was John Cotton, sometimes called “the Patriarch of New England”. 2.Roger Williams: 出生于伦敦的进步宗教思想家，曾长期受到英国殖民当局的迫害 ·He was interested in the Indian language ·Work：A Key into the Language of America 《阿美利加语言的钥匙》 Anne Bradstreet & Edward Taylor 1.Anne Bradstreet：美国第一位作品得以发表的女诗人 ·Work：The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America《第十位缪斯》 2.Edward Taylor：美国清教派牧师和诗人，被公认为美国19世纪前最重要的诗人 ·The best of the Puritan poets Part II The Literature of Reason and Revolution 1.Background: In the seventies of the eighteenth century the English colonies in North America rose in arms against their mother country. The War of Independence lasted for eight years(1775-1783) and ended in the formation of a federative bourgeois democratic republic—the United States of America. 2.American Enlightenment（美国启蒙运动）dealt a decisive blow to the Puritan traditions and brought to life secular
《将心注入》读书札记 1、如果说星巴克有什么最让我感到骄傲的成就，那就是我们公司里伙伴自信与互信的氛围。这绝非一句空话，而是体现在公司的许多行事方式中。 2、我坚定的相信星巴克最了不起的成就并不是过去，而是未来。 3、我的最终目的是本书能够让人们重新振奋起来去追寻自己的梦想，听从自己的内心，即使遭人讥笑也无所顾忌。不要轻易就被否定意见打到，别让尝试失败的可能吓到了你。什么失败的可能性能够吓到一个在廉价公寓里长大的孩子呢。 4、如果你倾心投入于自己的工作，或是任何值得为之努力的事业，你就有可能实现在他人看来不可能实现的梦想。生活因此变得很有意义。 5、只有心灵能洞察一切，用眼睛是看不见事物本质的。 6、充满幻想的人有一个特点：他们力图创造一个于单调乏味的日常生活截然不同的更美好的世界。这也是星巴克的目的所在。我们想在我们的故事中创造乙方绿洲，一个就在你隔壁的地方，你可以去那儿小憩一会儿，听听爵士乐，一边和咖啡，一边思考一下宇宙或是个人，甚至是异想天开的念头。 7、我的每一步都迈向众人未曾涉足的领域，而且冒的风险也越来越大。只要坚持下去，大多数人都可以实现并超越梦想。在你尝试之前，先不要说做不到。 8、在其他人都已经停下来休息并准备重新争球的很长一段时间里，我还在跑着，去追逐某种别人看不到的东西。 9、每一段经历都为你的下一步做了铺垫，只是你不知道下一步是怎么回事。 10、我总是想着我的下一步怎么办，够了并不代表足够。 11、我们可以创新，我们可以重新挖掘企业的全部潜在价值，但星巴克的优质咖啡，以及其新鲜烘焙原颗咖啡豆的原则不变。这是我们的精神遗产。 12、生活往往是一连串的错失组成的。可是，这里面我们归结为运气的东西，说到底并非完全出于运气。其实，该做的就是抓住当下，为你的未来负责。 13、没有一桩伟大成就仅靠运气就能造就。 14、星巴克会成为人们生活中的伟大体验，而不仅仅是一家零售店。 15、每当你看见一个成功的企业，必定是有人做出过勇敢的决策。——彼得·德鲁克 16、幸运只眷顾有规划的人。 17、坏运气的到来往往像晴天霹雳，说来就来，让你措手不急；而好运气呢，却更像有意为之的结果。 18、咖啡店的意义不仅在于教顾客如何懂得用优质咖啡，而且在于教顾客如何享用咖啡。是让人们用我们提供的方式去享受我们为他们准备好的咖啡。 19、我们判断自己，是根据我们能够做到的事情；而别人判断我们，是根据我们已经做成的事情。——亨利·华兹华斯·朗费罗 20、如果你不去做一条敢打敢斗的夹紧尾巴的够，去搏一下计划，那么你就会得到最糟糕的下场：平庸。 21、衡量一个人的最终尺度，不是看他顺顺当当的时候待在哪儿，而是看他受到非难和争议的时候如何应对。——马丁·路德·金 22、我们许多人都曾在生活中遭遇这样的危急关头——你的梦想眼看就要破灭。你也许根本没想到会出现这种情况，但你对此作何反应是至关重要的。重要的是，记住你的价值观：勇敢去面对，但也必须有公平之心，不要屈服。 23、那些在可怜巴巴的夜梦中退避心智的人，醒来时会发现一切都很空虚；而在白日做梦的人则面对风险的调整，因为他们睁着眼睛实践梦想，使之成为可能。——T.E.劳伦斯
经典英文广告语20条 经典英文广告语20条 1． Good to the last drop． 滴滴香浓，意犹未尽。（麦斯威尔咖啡) 2． Obey your thirst． 服从你的渴望。（雪碧） 3． The new digital era． 数码新时代。（索尼影碟机） 4． We lead． Others copy． 我们领先，他人仿效。（理光复印机） 5． Impossible made possible． 使不可能变为可能。（佳能打印机） 6． Take time to indulge． 尽情享受吧！（雀巢冰激凌） 7． The relentless pursuit of perfection． 不懈追求完美。（凌志轿车） 8． Poetry in motion， dancing close to me． 动态的诗，向我舞近。（丰田汽车） 9． Come to where the flavor is． Marlboro Country． 光临风韵之境——万宝路世界。（万宝路香烟） 10．To me， the past is black and white， but the future is always color．对我而言，过去平淡无奇；而未来，却是绚烂缤纷。（轩尼诗酒） 11. Just do it. 只管去做。（耐克运动鞋） 12. Ask for more. 渴望无限。（百事流行鞋） 13. The taste is great. 味道好极了。（雀巢咖啡） 14. Feel the new space. 感受新境界。（三星电子） 15. Intelligence everywhere. 智慧演绎，无处不在。（摩托罗拉手机） 16. The choice of a new generation. 新一代的选择。（百事可乐） 17. We integrate, you communicate. 我们集大成，您超越自我。（三菱电工） 18. Take TOSHIBA, take the world. 拥有东芝，拥有世界。（东芝电子） 19. Let’s make things better. 让我们做得更好。（飞利浦电子） 20. No business too small, no problem too big.
我们的故事作文_优秀作文 我们的故事作文 文／毕慧超 每座城市都有各自的故事，正如每个人都拥有自己的青春，或热烈奔放或静谧内敛，无形却又客观存在，也正是因为它的存在让每个人活得更加真实而精彩，也让每座城市焕发着生机与活力，让那再普通不过的一条路也承载着不一样的故事而拥有独特的价值。 每条道路都有着深厚的历史。 承德道，1886年曾设有法国领事馆。 睦南道，曾有多位民国总统、总理的寓所。 今天，我们走着再熟悉不过的道路，可又有谁能知道它在历史中曾见证了多少事件，承载着多少沧桑又有谁，能够说清某条路曾发生过多少故事，满承着多少希望与彷徨。 也许，一个婴儿曾呱呱坠地，就在这条路上，它见证了一个新生命的诞生，承载了一个希望的故事。 也许，曾有一对新人许下终生厮守的诺言，就在这条路上，它见证了人世间最纯净的一份情感，承载了一个爱的故事。 也许，曾有一位老母送儿子奔赴抗日的战场，就在这条路上，它见证了胸怀保家卫国的爱国之心的儿子对老母的不舍与牵挂，承载了一个离别的故事。 也许，有家老店从开业到关张，就在这条路上，它见证了一位老者一生事业的兴起，繁荣发展直至衰落，承载了一个跌宕的故事。 这些故事，或喜悦或悲伤，都随着时间的流逝，一部分淹没在历史的长河中，一部分被人遗忘，然而，这条路却默默地记住了每个故事，分享与分担着他们的喜悦与悲伤。城市中充满了这样的路，他们虽承受着岁月的冲刷，慢慢老去，但承载的故事也越来越多，越来越厚，使他们永远年轻。 这些故事让这座城市在厚重下透着鲜活，喧嚣中透着宁静。这些这座城独有的气息，也无时无刻不在提醒着我们，这是我们的城市，因为每条路都承载着我们各自的故事，那是我们的故事。（作者为天津外国语大学附属外国语学校学生） 美丽的守候 ［224400］江苏省阜宁中学单颖
《美国文学史及选读》考研吴伟仁版考研复 习笔记和真题 第一部分殖民地时期的美国文学 第1章约翰·史密斯 1.1 复习笔记 I. Historical Introduction (历史背景) (1) At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the vast continental area that was to become the United States had been probed only slightly by English and European explorers. At last early in the seventeenth century, the English settlements in Virginia and Massachusetts began the main stream of what we recognize as the American national history. (2) The colonies that became the first United States were for the most part sustained by English traditions, ruled by English laws, supported by English commerce, and named after English monarchs and English lands. (3) The first writings that we call American were the narratives and journals of the settlements. They wrote about their voyage to the new land, about adapting to new life and dealing with Indians; they wrote letters, contracts, government charters, religious and political statements. (4) The first permanent English settlement in North America was established at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. Among the members of the small band of Jamestown settlers was Captain John Smith, an English soldier of fortune.
文学史笔记： 一、Early American and colonial period (1607-1765) (religious conflicts Catholism vs.Puritanism) 1.Puritanism: 1.) Simply speaking , American Puritanism just refers to the spirit and ideal of puritans,who settled in the North American continent in the early part of the seventeenth century because of religious persecutions.In content it means scrupulous ,moral rigor ,especially hostility to social pleasures and indulgences,that is strictness,sternness and austerity in conduct and religion. 2.)with time passing it became a dominant factor in American life , one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and literature .To some extent it is a state of mind , a part of the national cultural atmosphere that the American breathes ,rather than a set of tenets. 3.）Actually it is a code of values , a philosophy of life and a point of view in American minds , also a two-faceted tradition of religious idealism and level -headed in common sense . 2.The main features of this period 1).American literature grew out of humble origins. Diaries, histories, journals, letters, commonplace books, travel books, sermons, in short, personal literature in its various forms, occupy a major position in the literature of the early colonial period.
好词好句：关于相遇的唯美句子 关于相遇的唯美句子 1、相遇，心绪如白云飘飘；拥有，心花如雨露纷飞；错过，心灵如流沙肆虐。回首，幽情如蓝静夜清。 2、感谢上苍，让我结识了你。在这美丽的季节，这美好的相遇。 3、错过，是为了下一次更好的相遇，如果相遇，我会更懂得如何珍惜。 4、从来觉得相逢是一种偶然，邂逅是一种机遇。相遇后，却成了匆匆而过的路人。如果是这样，是不是宁愿从未开始也从未相遇。 5、与君初相识，犹如故人归 6、又是一场相遇，偶然，伤与痛，在等着我。若是你我不曾相遇，受伤的你悄悄来到我身边就成了必然。 7、有的时候看起来，天上的两片云总会有相遇的一天。可是人们不知道，那是不同高度上的两片云，永远也不会相遇。
8、用一朵花开的时间相遇，在我最美好的年华里，用我最美好的姿态，遇见你。 9、一个生灵与另一个生灵的相遇是千载一瞬，分别却是万劫不复。茫茫人海中，相遇是缘起，相识是缘续，相知是缘定。 10、一幅画，一次瞬间的回眸，就在那次画展上，那个眼神，温柔的流转，还是那干净的皮鞋，一尘不染，俊朗的眉宇性感的唇，悄悄走近，牵手一段浪漫。 11、也许相遇就是遇上今生值得的人吧!即使需要分离，但那段时光不会消释。 12、心灵与心灵的相遇才是文艺。 13、假如人生不曾相遇，不曾想过会牵挂一个远方的人。我有深切的愿望，愿你快乐每一天。淡淡的情怀很真，淡淡的问候很纯，淡淡的思念很深，淡淡的祝福最真。虽然一切只能给虚幻中的你。 14、相遇，是一个多么动人的名词。于这茫茫人海中，于这网海茫茫中，每天有多少的相遇擦肩而过，每天又有多少的匆匆擦肩而过。
15、相思点点，夜夜期盼，期盼着相逢。听一曲“彩云追月”，泪，滴落!那是心灵的倾诉!幽怨的笛声似在向我诉说着离别后还能否再相聚?此时，独自一人在黑暗中望月思君，有我用蓝色的相思泪调 和的思念，飘向远方夜色苍茫中的你。 1 16、相逢是缘相知最美相爱是罪相守最累!爱到不能爱时说分手，到底是谁辜负了谁?相逢的日子淡如水，谁爱谁都无所谓。因为那个 时候，谁也不是谁的谁，海阔天空自由飞。 17、相逢是首歌，我们举杯，我们对酒当歌，拉家长里短，数儿女情长，谈笑风生，肆无忌惮。倾诉的是真情，珍藏的是友谊。 18、我要用什么样的速度，才能与你相遇。 19、我们本是不同象限里的点线面，却在超越时空的领域里莫名的相遇，你回头看我，我回头看你…始终要分离。起点也是终点，我遇上了你，却要分离。 20、世界小得像一条街的布景，我们相遇了，你点点头，省略了所有的往事，省略了问候。也许欢乐只是一个过程，一切都已经结束。
经典广告词中英文翻译2．Obey your thirst．服从你的渴望。（雪碧） 3．The new digital era．数码新时代。（索尼影碟机） 4．We lead．Others copy．我们领先，他人仿效。（理光复印机）5．Impossible made possible．使不可能变为可能。（佳能打印机） 6．Take time to indulge．尽情享受吧！（雀巢冰激凌） 7．The relentless pursuit of perfection．不懈追求完美。（凌志轿车）8．Poetry in motion，dancing close to me．动态的诗，向我舞近。（丰田汽车）9．Come to where the flavor is．Marlboro Country． 光临风韵之境——万宝路世界。（万宝路香烟） 10．To me，the past is black and white，but the future is always color．对我而言，过去平淡无奇；而未来，却是绚烂缤纷。（轩尼诗酒） 11. Just do it.只管去做。（耐克运动鞋） 12. Ask for more.渴望无限。（百事流行鞋） 13. The taste is great.味道好极了。（雀巢咖啡） 14. Feel the new space.感受新境界。（三星电子） 15. Intelligence everywhere.智慧演绎，无处不在。（摩托罗拉手机） 16. The choice of a new generation. 新一代的选择。（百事可乐） 17. We integrate, you communicate. 我们集大成，您超越自我。（三菱电工） 18. Take TOSHIBA, take the world. 拥有东芝，拥有世界。（东芝电子） 19. Let’s make things better.让我们做得更好。（飞利浦电子） 20. No business too small, no problem too big. 没有不做的小生意，没有解决不了的大问题。（IBM公司） 1 Good to the last drop 滴滴香浓，意犹未尽麦式咖啡Maxwell 2 Time is what you make of it 天长地久斯沃奇手表Swatch 3Make yourself heard 理解就是沟通爱立信Ericsson 4Start ahead 成功之路从头开始飘柔rejoice 5Diamond lasts forever 钻石恒久远，一颗永流传第比尔斯De Bieeres 6Things go better with Coca-cola 饮可口可乐万事如意 7Connecting people Nokia 科技以人为本诺基亚Nokia 9A Kodak moment 就在柯达一刻柯达Kodak 10Mosquito Bye Bye Bye，蚊子杀杀杀雷达牌驱蚊虫剂RADAR
工作案例 我们的故事 班主任工作的核心是德育工作，德育工作中最令班主任头痛的是转化后进生，转化后进生是老师所肩负的重大而艰巨的任务，也是教育工作者不容推卸的责任。 我班有个学生叫任子俊。高一上学期前段时间，上课要么扰乱他人学习，要么情绪低落；下课胡乱打闹，同学间经常闹矛盾，同学们都嫌弃他；不按时交送作业，各门功课单元测试不及格……每天不是科任老师就是学生向我告状。是班级有名的“捣蛋鬼”，真让我头痛。于是，我找他谈话，希望他在学校遵守各项规章制度，以学习为重，自我调节，自我改进，做一名合格的中学生。但经过几次努力，他只在口头上答应，行动上却毫无改进。期中测试各科竟然不及格。看到他不思进取，我的心都快凉了，算了吧，或许他就是那根“不可雕的朽木”。不理他的那几天，他便变本加厉地闹起来！此时，我觉得逃避不了，必须正视现实！我内心一横：我不改变你，誓不罢休！ 为了有针对性地做工作，我决定先专程深入到他家去进行详细了解，然后再找对策。接待我的是其奶奶，通过其奶奶的介绍，我才了解到：原来他的父母两年前离婚，父亲为维持生计去外地打工，不理家事。只有七十多岁的奶奶看着他。原先，这个孩子可听话了，只是最近两年才难管的。他奶奶由于年龄大，也管不住他。 在家访回学校的路上，我内心久久不能平静，像打翻了的五味瓶！于是，转化他的行动在悄然中进行。我首先设法接近他，清除隔阂，
拉近关系。经过观察，我发现他喜欢乒乓球。到了课外活动时间，我约他打乒乓球，给他讲打乒乓球的技巧，谈论目前我国乒乓球在国际上的地位，谈论“世界杯，乒超联赛”等，谈论王浩，马龙等乒乓球健将。并提示他多参加有益的文体活动，这样对身体有好处。通过几次的接触，我与他慢慢交上了朋友,但他的纪律等并无多大改进。后来，我便加强攻势：一边与他打乒乓球一边与他交流讨论生活，进而讨论学习。不动声色地教他遵守纪律，尊敬师长，团结同学，努力学习，做一名好学生。在路上遇到他，我会有意识地先向他问好；只要他的学习有一点进步时我就及时给予表扬、激励。他生病时我就给他买药、找热水........使他处处感到老师在关心他,信赖他。他也逐渐明白了做人的道理,明确了学习的目的。 通过半学期的努力，他上课开始认真起来，作业也能按时上交，各科测试成绩能达到及格了。与同学之间的关系也改善了，各科老师都觉得他懂事了由于纪律表现不断好起来，学习成绩也不断好起来了。趁着良好势头我不断加强巩固，我安排班长和学习委员与他交流讨论学习生活。通过班主任和科任老师几个月的共同激励、启发及同学们的共同帮助。奇迹出现了：午休、晚休及自习课，他不仅自己遵守纪律，还管起那些不遵守纪律的同学。于是，我试着让他当值日生。果然，在他值日那天全班纪律特别好。在良好的纪律保证之下，他的学习成绩得到迅速的提高。看着他上课如此聚精会神的神态，看着他课外活动时间仍然与学习委员一起钻研难题的影子，看着他准确工整的作业，看着班上手抄报里有他的笔墨，看着他劳动课大汗淋漓的样
History And Anthology of American Literature （6） 附：作者及作品 一、殖民主义时期The Literature of Colonial America 1．船长约翰·史密斯Captain John Smith 《自殖民地第一次在弗吉尼亚垦荒以来发生的各种事件的真实介绍》 “A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony” 《弗吉尼亚地图，附：一个乡村的描述》 “A Map of Virginia: with a Description of the Country” 《弗吉尼亚通史》“General History of Virginia” 2．威廉·布拉德福德William Bradford 《普利茅斯开发历史》“The History of Plymouth Plantation”3．约翰·温思罗普John Winthrop 《新英格兰历史》“The History of New England” 4．罗杰·威廉姆斯Roger Williams 《开启美国语言的钥匙》”A Key into the Language of America” 或叫《美洲新英格兰部分土著居民语言指南》 Or “A Help to the Language of the Natives in That Part of America Called New England ” 5．安妮·布莱德斯特Anne Bradstreet 《在美洲诞生的第十个谬斯》 ”The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America” 二、理性和革命时期文学The Literature of Reason and Revolution 1。本杰明·富兰克林Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) ※《自传》“ The Autobiography ” 《穷人理查德的年鉴》“Poor Richard’s Almanac” 2。托马斯·佩因Thomas Paine (1737-1809) ※《美国危机》“The American Crisis” 《收税官的案子》“The Case of the Officers of the Excise”《常识》“Common Sense” 《人权》“Rights of Man” 《理性的时代》“The Age of Reason” 《土地公平》“Agrarian Justice” 3。托马斯·杰弗逊Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) ※《独立宣言》“The Declaration of I ndependence” 4。菲利浦·弗瑞诺Philip Freneau (1752-1832) ※《野忍冬花》“The Wild Honey Suckle” ※《印第安人的坟地》“The Indian Burying Ground” ※《致凯提·迪德》“To a Caty-Did” 《想象的力量》“The Power of Fancy” 《夜屋》“The House of Night” 《英国囚船》“The British Prison Ship” 《战争后期弗瑞诺主要诗歌集》 “The Poems of Philip Freneau Written Chiefly During the Late War” 《札记》“Miscellaneous Works” 三、浪漫主义文学The Literature of Romanticism 1。华盛顿·欧文Washington Irving (1783-1859) ※《作者自叙》“The Author’s Account of Himself” ※《睡谷传奇》“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” 《见闻札记》“Sketch Book” 《乔纳森·欧尔德斯泰尔》“Jonathan Oldstyle” 《纽约外史》“A History of New York” 《布雷斯布里奇庄园》“Bracebridge Hall” 《旅行者故事》“Tales of Traveller” 《查理二世》或《快乐君主》“Charles the Second” Or “The Merry Monarch” 《克里斯托弗·哥伦布生平及航海历史》 “A History of the Life and V oyages of Christopher Columbus” 《格拉纳达征服编年史》”A Chronicle of the Conquest of Grandada” 《哥伦布同伴航海及发现》 ”V oyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus” 《阿尔罕布拉》“Alhambra” 《西班牙征服传说》“Legends of the Conquest of Spain” 《草原游记》“A Tour on the Prairies” 《阿斯托里亚》“Astoria” 《博纳维尔船长历险记》“The Adventures of Captain Bonneville” 《奥立弗·戈尔德史密斯》”Life of Oliver Goldsmith” 《乔治·华盛顿传》“Life of George Washington” 2．詹姆斯·芬尼莫·库珀James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) ※《最后的莫希干人》“The Last of the Mohicans” 《间谍》“The Spy” 《领航者》“The Pilot” 《美国海军》“U.S. Navy” 《皮袜子故事集》“Leather Stocking Tales” 包括《杀鹿者》、《探路人》”The Deerslayer”, ”The Pathfinder” 《最后的莫希干人》“The Last of the Mohicans” 《拓荒者》、《大草原》“The Pioneers”, “The Praire” 3。威廉·卡伦·布莱恩特William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) ※《死之思考》“Thanatopsis” ※《致水鸟》“To a Waterfowl” 4。埃德加·阿伦·坡Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) ※《给海伦》“To Helen” ※《乌鸦》“The Raven” ※《安娜贝尔·李》“Annabel Lee” ※《鄂榭府崩溃记》“The Fall of the House of Usher” 《金瓶子城的方德先生》“Ms. Found in a Bottle” 《述异集》“Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque” 5。拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) ※《论自然》“Nature” ※《论自助》“Self-Reliance” 《美国学者》“The American Scholar” 《神学院致辞》“The Divinity School Address” 《随笔集》“Essays” 《代表》“Representative Men” 《英国人》“English Traits” 《诗集》“Poems” 6。亨利·戴维·梭罗Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) ※《沃尔登我生活的地方我为何生活》 1
餐厅广告语,英文 篇一：经典英文广告语20条 经典英文广告语20条 经典英文广告语20条1．Goodtothelastdrop． 滴滴香浓，意犹未尽。（麦斯威尔咖啡) 2．obeyyourthirst． 服从你的渴望。（雪碧）3．Thenewdigitalera． 数码新时代。（索尼影碟机）4．welead．otherscopy． 我们领先，他人仿效。（理光复印机）5．impossiblemadepossible． 使不可能变为可能。（佳能打印机）6．Taketimetoindulge． 尽情享受吧！（雀巢冰激凌）7．Therelentlesspursuitofperfection． 不懈追求完美。（凌志轿车）8．Poetryinmotion，dancingclosetome． 动态的诗，向我舞近。（丰田汽车）
9．cometowheretheflavoris．marlborocountry． 光临风韵之境——万宝路世界。（万宝路香烟） 10．Tome，thepastisblackandwhite，butthefutureisalwayscolor．对我而言，过去平淡无奇；而未来，却是绚烂缤纷。（轩尼诗酒） 11.Justdoit. 只管去做。（耐克运动鞋） 12.askformore. 渴望无限。（百事流行鞋） 13.Thetasteisgreat. 味道好极了。（雀巢咖啡） 14.Feelthenewspace. 感受新境界。（三星电子） 15.intelligenceeverywhere. 智慧演绎，无处不在。（摩托罗拉手机） 16.Thechoiceofanewgeneration. 新一代的选择。（百事可乐） 17.weintegrate,youcommunicate. 我们集大成，您超越自我。（三菱电工） 18.TakeToSHiBa,taketheworld. 拥有东芝，拥有世界。（东芝电子） 19.Let’smakethingsbetter. 让我们做得更好。（飞利浦电子）
Episode 1（反抗） 1 清教徒躲避宗教迫害乘“五月花”号（Mayflower）来到美洲大陆。 2 感恩节的由来。 3 “波士顿惨案”和“波士顿倾茶案”是美国独立战争的导火索。 4 “莱克星顿第一枪”打响美国独立战争，从此，美洲大陆不再是英国人的殖民地，独立为美利坚合众国。 Episode 2（革命） 1 1776年7月4日，第二次大陆会议通过了《独立宣言》（由托马斯·杰弗逊起草），它宣布新大陆13个殖民地要独立成为一个新的国家：“人人生而平等，造物主赋予了他们不可剥夺的权利，包括生存权、自由权和追求幸福的权利”。 2 英军总司令被杀是美国独立战争的转折点，此时法国舰队加入，帮助美国在海上抵抗英国舰队。1783签署《巴黎条约》，英国承认美国独立。 Episode 3 (西进运动) 1 为了寻求财富，美国人向西部迁移，称为“西进运
动”。当内华达山脚下发现金矿后，“淘金热”。 2 西进运动的转折点：美国人在得克萨斯州的阿拉莫被墨西哥人打败，“阿拉莫之战”，向西部发动战争，攻占了得克萨斯州后，又买下加利福尼亚州。 3 《印第安人迁移法》迫使当地的土著民去保留地居住。 4 美国的最长的河流密西西比河，从米尼苏达北部发源，一直到新奥尔良南部。19世纪蒸汽机的发明使密西西比河促进了美国经济的发展。 Episode 4 (南北分裂) 1 伊利湖使以纽约为代表的美国北方工业区更加繁荣。 2 南方种植园里的大量黑人奴隶生活悲惨，纷纷冒险逃亡到北方。 3 《逃奴法案》准许南方奴隶主搜捕逃亡到北方的奴隶，激起北方民众的怨愤。小说《汤姆叔叔的小屋》描述了黑人奴隶生不如死的生活状态，在西方其重要性仅次于《圣经》。 4 南北战争的原因：南方和北方为美国到底是实行奴隶制还是自由制而发生冲突，双方不肯退让。 5 林肯当选总统后，准备废奴，此时南方6个蓄奴州