英语国家概况名词解释

美国山脉：The Appalachians on the east stretch almost unbroken from Alabama to the Canadian border and beyond.The eastern United States is broad, flat coastal plain.The Great Plain lie west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains.To the west of the interior basin lies the mighty system of mountain Cordillera.英国议会：The UK Parliament is one of the oldest representative assemblies in the world, having its origins in the mid-thirteenth-century great councils. Parliaments is the supreme legislative body and the assembly that Government is drawn from and answerable to. It comprise three elements: the Crown, the non-elected House of Commons, of which the latter is the source of real political power in the United Kingdom. In theory, the main function of Parliament is to legislate, that is, to create, abolish or amend new laws for the entire nation. But, in practice, it normally passes bills that are often proposed by the government. In addition, Parliament also votes the taxation and expenditures of the government; examines government policies and administration; and debates major political issues of the day.New England:New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states.It was one of the settlements by British colonists.it is a leader in innovative business methods,publishing,and the design and production of high-tech weaponry,aircraft,engines, tools and computers.Protestantism:One of the three major branches of Christianity,originating in the sixteenth-century reformation in Europe. The term applies to the belief of Christians who do not adhere to roman catholicism or eastern orthodoxy.The RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the period roughly from the 14th to the 17th century and profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Beginning in Italy, and spreading to the rest of Europe by the 16th century, its influence was felt in literature, philosophy, art, music, politics, science, religion, and other aspects of intellectual inquiry. Renaissance scholars employed thehumanistmethod in study, and searched for realism and human emotion in art.英国资产阶级革命:English Bourgeois Revolution:The Marxist view of the English Revolution suggests that the events of 1640 to 1660 in Britain was a bourgeois revolution in which the final section of English feudalism (the state) was destroyed by a bourgeois class (and its supporters) and replaced with a state (and society) which reflected the wider establishment of agrarian (and later industrial) capitalism. Such an analysis sees the English Revolution as pivotal in the transition from feudalism tocapitalism and from a feudal state to a capitalist state in Britain.In Marxism, the "English Revolution" is the period of the English Civil Wars and Commonwealth period (1640–1660), in which Parliament challenged KingCharles I's authority, engaged in civil conflict against his forces, and executed him in 1649. This was followed by a ten-year period of bourgeoisrepublican government, the "Commonwealth", before monarchy was restored in the shape of Charles' son, Charles II in 1660.The Industrial Revolution:The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, and transport had a profound effect on the socioeconomic and cultural conditions in the United Kingdom. The changes subsequently spread throughout Europe, North America, and eventually the world. The Declaration of Independence:The Declaration of Independence is the usual name of a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as 13 newly independent sovereign states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. Instead they formed a new nation—theUnited States of America.英国宗教改革:Background:①In the Middle Ages, the Church had gained not only material importance,but also extensive power in politics and law.②During Herry VIII’s early reign, there emerged an atmosphere of widespread criticism of the church for the immorality of it’s clergy and corruption of it’s structure.③King Herry desired to make the pope and all church officers of England acknowledge his superior jurisdiction over the church in England.Time:14th-15th century,the period of the House of TudorPerson:Herry VIII initiated a revolution in 1533Direct cause:The king Herry VIII failed to get the papal approval for divorcing his wife,Catherine,who had failed to get the male heir for him.Result:①separate the English church from Rome and establish himself head of the church.②It was only a reform in the sense of administration or outward structures.③Herry VIII was not theologically closer to the newly arising Protestantism.④Did not changes the doctrines and ceremonies of his independent church.⑤Herry VIII’s power was greatly enlarged,especially by transferring to the crown the wealth of the monasteries and by new clerical taxes.In 1553,Mary restored Roman Catholicism to England and burned many Protestants at the stake as heretics (1516-1558).this was called “Bloody Mary”.In 1588,British history entered the reign of Elizabeth 1,an age of glory.despite her own protestant background,she succeeded in putting to rest the religious issue which had divided the country since her father herry viii,most notably by balancing the interests of puritans and the “die-hard” Catholics.美国西进运动:Westward movement happened in late 18th,and continued to early 20c. In 1763,the British proclamation ordered a halt to the westward movement at the Appalachians. Throughout the 19th century, America greatly expanded its size with massive westward movement.After the American revolution, a flood of people crossed the mountains into the fertile lands between the Appalachians and the Mississippi river. During the 1830s and 40s ,the flood of pioneers poured westward. In 1849 fortune seekers rushed into California in search of gold. in July 1803, napoleon of France, in a surprise move, offered the whole Louisiana territory to the united states for $ 15000000. America accepted and overnight the united states grew by about one million square miles, from the Mississippi to the Rockies and from the gulf of Mexico to canada.the westward movement was of enormous significance. By expanding the nation’s borders to include more than three million square miles, the united states became one of the most powerful nations of the 20th century, however, this expansion also resulted in great suffering, destruction, and cultural loss for the Native Americans of North America.。