- •1. The land of the us: geography, the face of the land, mountain and rivers, weather and climate.
- •2. The people of the usa: population, the society. Ellis Island - Gateway to America. Contribution of the immigrants to the national identity.
- •"Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,....
- •A new era, a new mission
- •3. The regions of the us: the Northeast, the Central Basin, the Southeast, the Great Plains.
- •The Regions of the United States The Northeast
- •4. Discovery of America. American Indians - the accomplishments of the Iroquois, the Sioux, the Pueblo; great civilizations of the Mayas, Aztecs and Incas.
- •5. The History of the usa: Columbus or Vikings? Exploring and settling the New World: Spanish, Dutch and French territories in North America. Russian discovery of America.
- •French colonization of the Americas
- •6. The voyage of the Mayflower, Pylgrims and Puritans. Virginia Company with the right to colonise the South and the Plymouth Company with the right to colonise the North.
- •Pilgrims' voyage
- •Second Mayflower
- •Virginia Company
- •The Plymouth Company
- •7. Britain and the colonies. Jamestown colony, the dramatic history of Virginia.
- •8. The move to independence: the colonies in their fight to protect their liberties, the Tea Act and Boston Tea Party.
- •First Continental Congress
- •Second Continental Congress
- •10. The Founding Fathers of the nation (g. Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Samuel Adams, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin).
- •Collective biography of the Framers of the Constitution
- •11. Constitution of the us, structure and main principles. Bill of rights.
- •The First Constitution
- •Louisiana Purchase
- •Florida Purchase
- •Republic of Texas
- •Alaska Purchase
- •13. The Civil War - the reasons, the process, the generals, the battles the consequences. The Emancipation Proclamation. The role of a. Lincoln. The Gettysburg address.
- •The reasons of the Civil War.
- •How many Generals were there?
- •List of u.S. Army generals and chief staff officers in early 1861 Line officers
- •Staff Officers
- •Lincoln's role
- •14. Afterwar peiod (Reconstruction), the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the constitution. Carpetbaggers, Ku-Klux-Klan. What did Reconstruction fail?
- •15. America at the turn of the century: Foreign policy - the fight for new colonies: Venezuelan conflict, Cuban crisis, Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, the Panama Isthmus.
- •16. The Manifest Destiny, Monroe's Doctrine, Olney (or Roosevelt) Collorary.
- •17. Economic development: "captains of industry", industrialization. "The Square Deal" of Theodore Roosevelt and "The New Freedom" of w. Wilson. The us - a world leader.
- •List of businessmen who were called robber barons
- •U.S. Industrialization
- •History
- •18. America in the World War I. The League of Nations.
- •19. The roaring twenties. The rush for wealth. The movies. The bootleggers. Prohibition.
- •20. The Great Depression and the New Deal. The difference of the Roosevelt Administration from all previous administrations.
- •21. America before and at the time of the World War II. Hirishima 1945: right or wrong?
- •22. After the wwii: prodperity and problems - presidencies of Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy. "McCarthyism". Cold War with the Soviet Union.
- •23. Korean War, the birth of Nato, the War in Vietnam, crisis over Cuba.
- •24. The American century - the Americanization of the world. Mail Concepts of American Business.
- •27. The symbols of the us: the Statue of Liberty, the White house, the Library of Congress, the American Flag, the national Anthem.
- •28. Churches in the usa. America as a shelter for many people oppressed in their native countries for their religious beliefs. The role of religion in the us.
- •28. The main concepts of American Education.
- •30. The American Character: its origin and development. Values in the american character.
- •30. Cities of the us: Washington - planned city, New York (Big Apple) and its boroughs.
- •Economy
- •State finances
"Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,....
The processing of legal immigrants used to be the responsibility of each individual state and in New York the task was accomplished at Castle Garden in Battery Park at the southern most tip of New York City. In 1890, however, President Benjamin Harrison designated Ellis Island as the first Federal immigration station in the country. As a result, a newly constructed facility began to process immigrants on the first day of January in 1892. Fifteen-year-old Annie Moore became the first new immigrant to be processed on Ellis Island. Five years later, in 1897, a fire leveled the entire wooden structure and destroyed priceless records dating back as far as 1855. Three and a half years later, on December 17, 1900, processing in a new main building resumed without further interruption until the outbreak of World War I.
After the war, immigration screening shifted from the home front to the many new US embassies being opened worldwide. Immigrants could now apply for visas and medical testing at US consulates in the countries in which they resided. So, by the end of 1924, Ellis Island was only used to house war refugees, displaced persons, or immigrants with document irregularities. In fact, the last person detained on Ellis Island was Arne Peterssen, a Norwegian seaman. Following his release in November 1954, the facility was officially closed.
Bob Hope, Frank Capra, Bela Lugosi, Baron Von Trapp, Irving Berlin, Max Factor, Xavier Cugat, Rudolph Valentino, and Igor Sikorsky all entered the USA through Ellis Island.
During 62 years of operation, Ellis Island, along with the ports of San Francisco, New Orleans, Miami, Savannah, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Boston, processed more than 27 million arriving immigrants while denying entry to only 2%. Nearly 1.25 million immigrants were processed in 1907 alone, more than in any other year in the history of the USA.
Ellis Island is closer to the New Jersey shore but officially within New York State.
A new era, a new mission
When President Lyndon Johnson merged Ellis Island with the nearby Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965, Ellis Island was to enter a new era, to embark on new mission. During the years that followed, almost all public access to the island was limited. Then, in 1984, The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, with the cooperation of the National Park Service, requested donations from mainstream and corporate America to fund a $160 million dollar project that was to become the largest historic restoration in the history of the United States. When renovations were completed six years later, the main building reopened as the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. It has been attracting 2 million visitors a year ever since. The huge success of the Ellis Island Immigration Museum is a remarkable testimonial from Americans who, as they venture into the future, are still looking to recall their past.
One of the outstanding features of the Museum is The American Immigrant Wall of Honor with over 700,000 names nominated by friends and families of immigrants who shared the Ellis Island experience. Another remarkable event this year is the Ellis Island Living Theater with its frequent performances of "Taking a Chance on America: Bela Lugosi’s Ellis Island Story." This 30-minute production, written by playwright and screenwriter Aurorae Khoo, focuses on the Ellis Island experiences of famed actor Bela Lugosi as it depicts the Ellis Island inspection process.
The most acclaimed resource at the museum, however, is the American Family Immigration History Center with public access to the names of 22 million immigrants, crew members and other passengers who arrived in New York between 1892 and 1924. Finding the name of an ancestor is as easy as 1-2-3: