usa monuments and symbols1

7/28/2019 USA Monuments and Symbols1

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USA Monuments and Symbols


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Table of Contents

Introduction........page 3

Historical Monuments

The Statue of Liberty....page 4

The White House..........page 5

The Pentagon....page 6

Geographical Monuments

Yellowstone National Parkpage 7

The Grand Canyon.....page 8

Mount Rushmore National Monument..page 9

Symbols

Flag of the United States....page 10

Bald Eagle......page 10

Washington Monument..page 11

World Trade Centerpage12

Conclusion.....page 14

Bibliography.....page 15

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Introduction

The United States of America is a large country in North America, often

referred to as the "USA," the "U.S.," the "United States," "America," or simply"the States". It has a land area of about 9.6 million sq km (about half the size of

Russia and about the same size as China). It also boasts the world's third largest

population, with over 310 million people. It includes both densely-populated cities

with sprawling suburbs, and vast, uninhabited and naturally beautiful areas. With

its history of mass immigration dating from the 17th century, it is a "melting pot"

of cultures from around the world.

The country plays a dominant role in the world's cultural landscape, and is

famous for its wide array of popular tourist destinations, ranging from the

skyscrapers of Manhattan and Chicago, to the natural wonders of Yellowstone andAlaska, to the warm, sunny beaches of Florida, Hawaii and Southern California.

The United States of America are worldwide known for being a great

economical, political and military power and for being the most representative

example of democracy in the world. They managed to accomplish in a matter of

hundreds of years what others could not in thousands of years and all these even if

they dont have such an amazing culture as other countries, but the beauty of the

Kingdom is one to envy and praise and their monuments and symbols are true

works of art.

I have chosen USA Monuments and Symbols theme, because, from mypoint of view, it is an interesting topic. When you go to a foreign country, it is

very well to know something about the history of the region, about its monuments,

its symbols and its traditions.

From the beginning, I wanted to describe some of the most representative

buildings and creations of the nature from the USA.

Everyone heard about this New World discovered by Cristofor Coloumb

and everyone from all over the world came here to also discover the so-called

American-Dream. Thus, America became the most wealthy and powerful

country in the world, with a lot of extraordinaries traditions. The United States ofAmerica also have such great landforms and strange climat variation that makes

this country so interesting.

The Americans have known how to show their natural potential, to restore

the old monuments and symbols and to create new ones.

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The Statue of Liberty

Statue of Liberty, formally LIBERTY

ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD, the colossal

statue on Liberty Island in the Upper Bay of New

York Harbour - U.S., commemorates the

friendship of the people of the United States and

France. Standing 92 m high including its

pedestal, it represents a woman holding a torch

in her raised right hand and a tablet bearing the

date July 4, 1776, in her left, proclaiming liberty.

An elevator rises to the balcony level, and a

spiral staircase leads to an observation platform

in the figures crown. A plaque at the pedestals

entrance is inscribed with a sonnet, The New

Colossus-1883, by Emma Lazarus.

The statue was constructed of copper

sheets, hammered into shape by hand and

assembled over a framework of four gigantic

steel supports, designed by Eugne-Emmanuel

Viollet-le-Duc and Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel. In

1885 the completed statue, 151 feet 1 in high and

weighing 225 tones, was disassembled and shipped to New York City.

The pedestal, designed by American architect Richard Morris Hunt and

built within the walls of Ft. Wood on Bedloes Island, was completed later. The

statue, mounted on its pedestal, was dedicated by President Cleveland on October

28, 1886. In the mid 1980s the statue was repaired and restored by both American

and French workers for a centennial celebration held in July 1986.

The statue, also known as Lady Liberty, has been a symbol of welcome

to arriving immigrants, who could see the statue when they got close to arriving at

their new home or destination. The interior of the statue used to be open to

visitors.

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The White House

White House, formerly

EXECUTIVE MANSION (1818-1902), official residence of the

president of the U.S. , at 1600

Pennsylvania Avenue in

Washington D.C. . The White

House and its landscaped grounds

occupy 7.2 hectares of ground.

In 1791 a public competition was held to choose the most suitable design

for a presidential residence in the newly designated capital city of Washington.

Thomas Jefferson and others submitted drawings, but the Irish-American architectJames Hoban of Philadelphia won the commission with his plan for a Palladian

style. This structure was to have three floors and would be built in pale grey

sandstone. The cornerstone was laid on October 13, 1792 and President John

Adams and his wife, Abigail, became the newly completed mansions first

occupants in 1800. By 1809 it was already called the White House because its

white-grey sandstone contacted strikingly with the red brick of nearby building.

During the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, the mansions second-floor

rooms were converted from presidential offices to living quarters for his family

and the West Wing was constructed to provide greater office space for thepresident and his growing staff. More office space was made available with the

building of the East Wing in 1942. In 1948, during Harry Trumans presidency,

the entire interior of the main building was carefully rebuilt in the next four years,

though the original exterior walls were left standing. The last major alterations to

the White House were made in the 1960s by Jacqueline Kennedy, who collected

items of historic and artistic value with which to decorate its more than 130 rooms.

The main building still contains the presidential familys living quarters and

various reception rooms, all decorated in styles of the 18 th and 19th centuries. Parts

of the main building are open to guided tours. The north portico is the publicentrance to the main building, while the south portico is a private entrance

reserved for the presidential family. The West terrace contains a swimming pool

and gym, while the east terrace contains a movie theatre. The West Wing contains

the presidential office, the Cabinet rooms and the press rooms, while the East

Wing contains other offices.

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The Pentagon

Pentagon is a large five-sided building in Arlington country, Virginia, near

Washington, D.C., that serves as headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense

including all three services: Army, Navy and Air Force. Designed by George

Edwin Bergstrom, it was built in 1941-1943 to bring under one roof the United

States War Department offices, covering 14 hectares.

The open space in the center is informally known as ground zero, a

nickname originating during the Cold War and based on the presumption that the

Soviet Union would target one or more nuclear missiles at this central location.

The building consists of five concentric pentagons, or rings with 10 spoke like

corridors connecting the whole. A huge concourse within it provides a shopping

centre for Pentagon workers and beneath this concourse are bus and taxi terminals.Parking areas adjacent to the building can accommodate as many as 10 000 cars

and a heliport for the Pentagon was added in 1956.

Since 1998, the Pentagon has been undergoing a major renovation, known

as the Pentagon Renovation Program. This program, scheduled to be completed in

2010, involves the complete gutting and reconstruction of the entire building in

phases to bring the building up to modern standards, removing asbestos,

improving security and providing greater efficiency for Pentagon tenants. The new

space will include a return to open bays, with a new Universal Space Plan of

standardized office furniture and partitions developed by Studios Architecture.As originally built, most Pentagon office space consisted of open bays

which spanned an entire ring. These offices used cross-ventilation from operable

windows instead of air conditioning for cooling. Gradually, bays were subdivided

into private offices with using windows air conditioning units.

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The Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park, the oldest largest and probably best-known

national park in the U.S., situated in northwestern Wyoming and partly in southern

Montana and eastern Idaho. It was established by the U.S. Congress on March 1,

1872, as the nations first national park.

The park covers 898.349 hectares and consists mostly of broad volcanic

plateaus with an average elevation of 2440 m. Among the mountain ranges that

protrude into the park are the Gallatin Range on the northwest, the Absaroka

Range on the east, the Snow Mountains along the north and the Tetons along the

parks southern boundary. The park is also surrounded by the Custer, Shoshone,

Teton, Targhee, Beaverhead and Gallatin national forests.

Aside from its rugged mountains and spectacular deep vallers, Yellowstone

has unusual geologic features, including fossil forests, eroded basaltic lava flows,

a black obsidian (volcanic-glass) mountain and odd erosional forms. Its biggest

attractions, however, are its 10.000 hot springs, which find surface expression as

steam vents, fumaroles, colourful hot pools, mud caldrons, paint pots, hot springs

and terraces, hot rivers and geysers. Of the parks 200 geysers many erupt to

height of 30 m or more old. Faithful, the most famous geyser, erupts fairly

regularly every 33 to 93 minutes.

Yellowstone is also known for its lakes and rivers. River is a colourful

gorge 31 km long that runs through the park. The canyon has brilliantly coloured

rocks walls with two majestic waterfalls along its course. Most of Yellowstone

Park is forested, and the vast majority of the tree growth consists of lodge pole

pine, though there are other conifer species, as well as cottonwoods blossom in the

warm month. In 1988 a disastrous series of forest fires temporarily laid waste large

areas of the park.

Animal life in Yellowstone is typical of the Rocky Mountains and includes

buffalo, elk, bighorn sheep, deer, moose, black bear, grizzly bear and coyotes.

Many types of smaller mammals are also common. Hundreds of different species

of birds live in the park, among them many waterfowl. The lakes and streams are

stocked with fish, trout is the most popular with anglers.

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The Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon immense gorge cut by the Colorado River into the high

plateaus of north western Arizona, U.S., noted for its fantastic shapes and

coloration. The broad intricately sculptured chasm of the Grand Canyon contains

between its outer walls a multitudes of imposing peaks, buttes, canyons and

ravines.

The canyon includes many tributary side canyons and surrounding plateaus.

The deepest and most impressively beautiful section, 90 km long, is within Grand

Canyon National Park, which encompasses the rivers length from Lake Powell to

Lake Mead. In its general colours the canyon is a red, but each stratum or group of

strata has a distinctive hue-buff and gray, delicate green and pink and in its depths,

brown, slate-gray an violet.Grand Canyon National Park, now containing 4931 square km, was created

in 1919. Its area was greatly enlarged in 1975 by the addition of the former Grand

Canyon National Monument and Marble Grand National Monument and by

portions of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, as well as other adjoining

lands.

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Mount Rushmore National Monument

Mount Rushmore

National Monument is a

national memorial (1829 m)

situated in the Black Hills of

southwestern South Dakota,

U.S. , 40 km southwest of

Rapid-City. Huge sculptured of

the heads of presidents George

Washington, Thomas Jefferson,

Abraham Lincoln and Theodore

Roosevelt are carved in granite on the northeast side of Mount Rushmore.

The four heads, each about 60 feet high, represent, respectively, the

nations founding, political philosophy, preservation and expansion and

conservation. Construction began on August 10, 1927 after Gutzon Borglums

death, soon before the sculpture was done, the completion of the giant sculpture

was overseen by his son, Lincoln Borglum. The monument was finished in 1941,

after six and a half years of actual work. The federal government paid most of the

cost. Mount Rushmore is largely composed of granite. The material is carved on

the northwest margin of the Harney Peak granite batholith in the Black Hill of

South Dakota, so the geologic formations of the heart of the Black Hill region are

also evident at Mount Rushmore. The uneven cooling of the molten rock caused

the both fine and coarse-grained minerals, including quartz, feldspar, muscovite

and biotite. The granite of the face is comprised of a mixture of ceramic minerals

including quartz and feldspars, making Mount Rushmore a natural ceramic

landmark.

The flora and fauna of Mount Rushmore are similar to those of the rest of

the Black Hills region of South Dakota. The memorial serves as home to many

animals and plants representative of the Black Hills of South Dakota. Birds

including the turkey vulture, bald eagle, hawk and meadowlark fly around the

Mount Rushmore, occasionally making nesting sports in the ledges of the

mountain. Smaller birds, including songbirds, nuthatches and woodpeckers,

inhabit the surrounding pine forest. Terrestrial mammals include the mouse,

chipmunk, squirrel, skunk, porcupine, raccoon, beaver, badger, coyote, bighorn

sheep and bobcat. There is also a variety of wildflowers, including especially the

snapdragon, sunflower and violet.

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The Flag of the United States

Flag of the United States, popularly called the American flag and is

celebrated on June 14. It consists of 13 horizontal stripes, 7 red alternating with 6

white and in the upper corner near the staff, a rectangular blue field, or canton,

containing 50 five-pointed white stars.

The stripes symbolize the 13 colonies that originally constituted the United

States of America. The stars represent the 50 states of the Union. The symbolic of

the colors red, white and blue which are used in the flag is: white signifies purity

and innocence, red signifies hardiness and valor and blue signifies vigilance,

perseverance and justice.

Bald Eagle

The Bald Eagle is the national bird of the United

States of America. It appears on most of its official seals,

including the Seal of the President of the United States.

The Continental Congress adopted the current design of

the Great Seal of the United States including a Bald

Eagle grasping 13 arrows and 13 leaf olive branch with

its talons on June 20, 1782.

It is said the eagle was used as a national emblembecause at one of the first battles of the Revolution the

noise of the struggle awoke the sleeping eagles on the

heights and their flew from their nests and circled about

over the heads of the fighting men, all the while giving

vent to their raucous cries.

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Washington Monument

Washington Monument is situated

in Washington, D.C. and represents an

obelisk built to commemorate the first

American president, General George

Washington. The monument, made of

marble, granite, and bluestone gneiss, is

both the world's tallest stone structure and

the world's tallest obelisk. The idea of a

memorial honoring Washington

developed in the 1780s. In the absence of

action by the federal government, a group

of private citizens formed the Washington

National Monument Society in 1833.

The monument originally promoted by the Washington National Monument

Society was built between 1848 and 1884 from public subscriptions and federal

appropriations and was dedicated in 1885. The structure, based on a design by

Robert Mills, is a granite obelisk faced with Maryland marble 16,8 m square at the

base, 169,3 m high and weighing about 91 000 tones. It is located in grounds 43

hectares that are a westward extension of the Mall (the Capitol lying to its east)

and just east of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. It lies just north of the

Tidal Basin and is separated from the White House on the north only by the

Ellipse and Constitution Ave. It is supervised as a unit of the National Capital

Parks. Inserted in the interior walls are 190 carved stones presented by various

individuals, cities, states and foreign nations. The top of the monument can be

reached by an interior iron stairway comprising 50 landings and 898 steps; an

elevator makes the ascent in about 70 seconds.At the time of its construction, it

was the tallest building in the world; it remains the tallest stone structure in the

world. This monument is vastly taller than the obelisks around the capitals of

Europe and in Egypt, but ordinary antique obelisks were quarried as a monolithic

block of stone and therefore seldom taller than around 30 m.

The four faces of the pyramidal point all bear inscriptions in cursive letters.

Halfway up the steps of the monument is an inscription in Welsh Fy iaith, fy

ngwlad, fy nghenedl Cymru Cymry am byth (My language, my land, my nation

of Wales Wales forever). The reason for this inscription and its author are

unknown.

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World Trade Center

The idea of establishing a World Trade Centerin New York City was first

proposed in 1943, but the plans were put on hold in 1949.

The original World Trade Center was a complex of seven buildings. It

featured landmark twin towers, which opened on April 4, 1973 and were destroyed

in the September 11 attacks of 2001. The other buildings in the complex were

damaged in the attacks and eventually destroyed.

At the time of their completion, the original 1 World Trade Center (the

North Tower) and 2 World Trade Center (the South Tower), known collectively as

the Twin Towers, were the tallest buildings in the world. The other buildings

included 3 WTC (the Marriott World Trade Center), 4 WTC, 5 WTC, 6 WTC

(which housed United States Customs), and 7 WTC. All of these buildings were

built between 1975 and 1985.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda-affiliated hijackers flew

two Boeing 767 jets into the complex, one into each tower, in a coordinated

terrorist attack. After burning for 56 minutes, the South Tower collapsed, followed

a half-hour later by the North Tower , with the attacks on the World Trade Center

resulting in 2,753 deaths. 7 World Trade Center collapsed later in the day and the

other buildings, although they did not collapse, had to be demolished because they

were damaged beyond repair. The process of cleanup and recovery at the World

Trade Center site took eight months.

Over the following years, plans for a rebuilt World Trade Center took form.

The first new building was 7 World Trade Center, which opened in May 2006.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC), established in

November 2001 to oversee the rebuilding process, organized competitions to

select a site plan and memorial design. Memory Foundations, designed by Daniel

Libeskind, was selected as the master plan, but this went through substantial

changes in design.

The new World Trade Center complex will include One World Trade

Center, three other high-rise office towers, and the National September 11

Memorial & Museum. The 1,776-foot skyscraper, the One World Trade Center

building, is expected to reach its full height and to be completed by late 2013 or

early 2014, when it will likely to be declared the tallest building in the United

States and the third-tallest in the world.

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After years of effort and numerous setbacks, three of the proposed seven

towers to be built at the World Trade Center complex have "topped out", reaching

their structural maximum height. Seven WTC was completed in 2006, Four WTC

topped out in June of this year, and the tallest, One World Trade Center (formerly

known as Freedom Tower), just topped out at 104 floors on August 30, 2012.Financial difficulties have left the future of the remaining towers in doubt, and

have raised concerns about the still-incomplete National September 11 Memorial

and Museum, as the foundation that runs the memorial estimates that it will cost

$60 million a year to operate.

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Conclusion

At first, when I decided which would be the topic of my project, I thought it

would be interesting to write about a famous place. Then I thought at the UnitedStates of America.

Who hasnt heard about the Statue of Liberty, the White House, the

Washington Monument or who hasnt wondered about the flag? But, anyway, I

thought that I might find something really interesting which will make me learn

more about those monuments and symbols: who and why built them or what

significance they had or how we find them in present.

Britain's American colonies broke with the mother country (UK) in 1776

and were recognized as the new nation of the United States of America following

the Treaty of Paris in 1783. During the 19th and 20th centuries, 37 new states wereadded to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the North American

continent and acquired a number of overseas possessions.

The two most traumatic experiences in the nation's history were the Civil

War (1861-65) and the Great Depression of the 1930s. Buoyed by victories in

World Wars I and II and the end of the Cold War in 1991, the US remains the

world's most powerful nation state. The economy is marked by steady growth, low

unemployment and inflation, and rapid advances in technology.

The United States is made up of many diverse ethnic groups and the culture

varies greatly across the vast area of the country and even within cities - a city likeNew York will have dozens, if not hundreds, of different ethnicities represented

within a neighborhood. Despite this difference, there exists a strong sense of

national identity and certain predominant cultural traits. Generally, Americans

tend to believe strongly in personal responsibility and that an individual

determines his or her own success or failure, but it is important to note that there

are many exceptions and that a nation as diverse as the United States has literally

thousands of distinct cultural traditions. One will find Mississippi in the South to

be very different culturally from Massachusetts in the North.

In conclusion I hope everyone to enjoy what I have written about and to

become willing to travel in the USA (if they still arent) and to visit all of these

impressive buildings and landforms, with their landscapes.

Once you get there I suggest to explore and to find out more about the

country of all the possibilities, by living each experience in all what it involves.

The United States is home of exciting cities, scenic landscapes and history galore.

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Bibliography

Britanica (Micropaedia) vol. 1 A-ak Bayes (Ready Reference)

Britanica (Micropaedia) vol. 5 Freon Holderlin (Ready Reference)

Britanica (Micropaedia) vol. 7 Krasnokomsk Menadra (Ready Reference)

Britanica (Micropaedia) vol. 8 Menage Ottawa (Ready Reference)

Britanica (Micropaedia) vol. 9 Otter Rethimnon (Ready Reference)

Britanica (Micropaedia) vol. 12 Trudeau Zywiec (Ready Reference)

www.kaibab.org

http://biztravels-monuments.net/biztravels/monuments.php?

id=154&lg=en&w=statue_of_liberty

www.enchantedlearning.com

www.roportal.ro

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

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http://www.kaibab.org/http://biztravels-monuments.net/biztravels/monuments.php?id=154&lg=en&w=statue_of_libertyhttp://biztravels-monuments.net/biztravels/monuments.php?id=154&lg=en&w=statue_of_libertyhttp://www.enchantedlearning.com/http://www.roportal.ro/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/http://www.kaibab.org/http://biztravels-monuments.net/biztravels/monuments.php?id=154&lg=en&w=statue_of_libertyhttp://biztravels-monuments.net/biztravels/monuments.php?id=154&lg=en&w=statue_of_libertyhttp://www.enchantedlearning.com/http://www.roportal.ro/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

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