英美文化知识小点总结

Historic events

一)Hundred Years’ war 百年战争

It was a series of separate conflicts between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of France and their various allies for control of the French throne, which had

become vacant upon the extinction of the senior Capetian line of French kings.

Time:

From1337 to 1543

The war is commonly divided into three or four phases, separated by various unsuccessful truces:

①the Edwardian War (1337–1360);

②the Caroline War (1369–1389);

③the Lancastrian War (1415–1453);

Cause:

The background to the conflict is to be found in 1066, when William, Duke of Normandy, led an invasion of England. He defeated the English King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings, and had himself crowned King of England. As Duke of Normandy, he remained a vassal of the French King, and was required to swear fealty to the latter for his lands in France;

for a king to swear fealty to another king was considered humiliating, and the Norman Kings of England generally attempted to avoid the service. On the French side, the Capetian

monarchs resented a neighboring king holding lands within their own realm, and sought to neutralize the threat England now posed to France

The King of England directly ruled more territory on the continent than did the King of France himself. This situation – in which the kings of England owed vassalage to a ruler who was de facto much weaker – was a cause of continual conflict. John of England inherited this great estate from King Richard I. However, Philip II of France acted decisively to exploit the weaknesses of King John, both legally and militarily, and by 1204 had succeeded in

wresting control of most of the ancient territorial possessions.

Significance:

The Hundred Years' War was a time of military evolution. Weapons, tactics, army structure, and the societal meaning of war all changed, partly in response to the demands of the war, partly through advancement in technology, and partly through lessons that warfare taught.

The war also stimulated nationalistic sentiment. It devastated France as a land, but it also

awakened French nationalism. The Hundred Years' War accelerated the process of

transforming France from a feudal monarchy to a centralized state. The conflict became one of not just English and French kings but one between the English and French peoples. There were constant rumours in England that the French meant to invade and destroy the English language.

National feeling that emerged out of such rumours unified both France and England further.

The Hundred Years War basically confirmed the fall of the French language in England,

which had served as the language of the ruling classes and commerce there from the time of the Norman Conquest until 1362

Important Figures:

England

King Edward III 1327–1377 Edward II's son

King Richard II 1377–1399 Edward III's grandson

King Henry IV 1399–1413 Edward III's grandson

King Henry V 1413–1422 Henry IV's son

King Henry VI 1422–1461 Henry V's son

Edward, the Black Prince 1330–1376 Edward III's son

John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster 1340–1399 Edward III's son

John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford 1389–1435 Henry IV's son

Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster 1306–1361 Knight

John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury 1384–1453 Knight

Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York 1411–1460 Knight

Sir John Fastolf 1378?–1459 Knight

France

King Philip VI 1328–1350

King John II 1350–1364 Philip VI's son

King Charles V 1364–1380 John II's son

Louis I of Anjou 1380–1382 John II's son

King Charles VI 1380–1422 Charles V's son

King Charles VII 1422–1461 Charles VI's son

Joan of Arc 1412–1431 Commander

Jean de Dunois 1403–1468 Knight

Gilles de Rais 1404–1440 Knight

Bertrand du Guesclin 1320–1380 Knight

Jean Bureau 13??–1463 Knight

La Hire 1390–1443 Knight

二)civil war (1642-1651)南北战争, 又称美国内战

The American Civil War, often referred to simply as The Civil War in the United States, was a civil war fought in the United States of America.

Time:

From 1642 to 1651

Cause:

The causes of the Civil War were complex, and have been controversial since the war began. The issue has been further complicated by historical revisionists, who have tried to improve the image of the South by lessening the role of slavery.

Slavery was the central source of escalating political tension in the 1850s. The Republican Party was determined to prevent any spread of slavery, and many Southern

leaders had threatened secession if the Republican candidate, Lincoln, won the 1860 election.

Following Lincoln's victory, many Southern whites felt that disunion had become their only option.

While not all Southerners saw themselves as fighting to preserve slavery, most of the officers and over a third of the rank and file in Lee's army had close family ties to slavery. To Northerners, in contrast, the motivation was primarily to preserve the Union, not to abolish slavery.Abraham Lincoln consistently made preserving the Union the central goal of the war, though he increasingly saw slavery as a crucial issue and made ending it an additional goal. Lincoln's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation angered both Peace Democrats and War Democrats, but energized most Republicans.

By warning that free blacks would flood the North, Democrats made gains in the 1862 elections, but they did not gain control of Congress. The Republicans' counterargument that slavery was the mainstay of the enemy steadily gained support, with the Democrats crushed at the 1863 elections in Ohio when they tried to resurrect anti-black sentiment.

Main Content:

*The beginning of the war, 1861

Lincoln's victory in the presidential election of 1860 triggered South Carolina's declaration of secession from the Union.

On February 7 1861, the seven states adopted a provisional constitution for the Confederate States of America and established their temporary capital at Montgomery, Alabama.

A pre-war February Peace Conference of 1861 met in Washington in a failed attempt at resolving the crisis. However, governors in Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania quietly began buying weapons and training militia units. The great meeting in Union Square, New York, to support the government, April 20, 1861

On May 3, 1861, Lincoln called for an additional 42,034 volunteers for a period of three years

Four states in the upper South (Tennessee, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Virginia), which had repeatedly rejected Confederate overtures, now refused to send forces against their neighbors, declared their secession, and joined the Confederacy. To reward Virginia, the Confederate capital was moved to Richmond which was the symbol of the Confederacy.

*Anaconda Plan and blockade, 1861

Winfield Scott, the commanding general of the U.S. Army, devised the Anaconda Plan to win the war with as little bloodshed as possible.

His idea was that a Union blockade of the main ports would weaken the Confederate economy; then the capture of the Mississippi River would split the South. Lincoln adopted the plan in terms of a blockade to squeeze to death the Confederate economy, but overruled Scott's warnings that his new army was not ready for an offensive operation because public opinion demanded an immediate attack

In April 1861, Lincoln announced the Union blockade of all Southern ports; commercial ships could not get insurance and regular traffic ended.

On March 8, 1862, the Confederate Navy waged a fight against the Union Navy when the ironclad CSS Virginia attacked the blockade.

Northern technology achieved another breakthrough on April 10–11, 1862.

Eastern theater 1861–1863

Western theater 1861–1863

Trans-Mississippi theater 1861–1865

Conquest of Virginia and end of war: 1864–1865

On June 23, 1865, Cherokee leader Stand Watie was the last Confederate general to surrender his forces, which it is the end of the war.

战争期间主要战役

战役时间胜方

盖兹堡之役1863年7月1日–3日联邦

奇卡莫加之役1863年9月19日–20日邦联

第一次牛奔河之役1861年7月21日–4日邦联

第二次牛奔河之役1862年8月29日–2日邦联

钱瑟勒斯维尔之役1863年5月1日–4日邦联

斯波瑟韦尼亚郡府之役1864年5月8日–19日不明

安地潭之役1862年9月17日联邦

莽原之役1864年5月5日–7日不明

马那萨斯之战1862年8月29日–30日邦联

石河之役1862年12月31日联邦

唐奈尔森堡之役1862年2月13日–16日联邦

塞罗之役1862年4月6日–7日联邦

汉普顿锚地海战1862年3月8日–3月9日邦联

三)Glorious Revolution (1688-89)光荣革命

The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the name of the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau.

Time:

From1688 – 1689

Cause:

英国封建斯图亚特王朝国王查理一世统治时期，资本主义迅速发展。资本阶级与地主阶级的矛盾恶化，于是资本主义支持克伦威尔，并且取得了政权。但是克伦威尔上台后，大力加强独裁主义，自命为护国主。

In April 1688, James re-issued the Declaration of Indulgence and ordered all clergymen to read it in their churches. When the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Sancroft, and six other bishops (the Seven Bishops) wrote to James asking him to reconsider his policies, they were arrested on charges of seditious libel, but at trial they were acquitted to the cheers of the London crowd.

Matters came to a head in June 1688, when the King fathered a son, James; until then, the throne would have passed to his daughter, Mary, a Protestant.

Main Content:

*Embarkation of the army and the Declaration of The Hague

Embarkations, started on 22 September (Gregorian calendar), had been completed on

8 October, and the expedition was that day openly approved by the States of Holland; the same day James issued a proclamation to the English nation that it should prepare for a Dutch invasion to ward off conquest.

On 30 September/10 October (Julian/Gregorian calendars) William issued the Declaration of The Hague (actually written by Fagel), of which 60,000 copies of the English translation by Gilbert Burnet were distributed after the landing in England, in which he assured that his only aim was to maintain the Protestant religion, install a free parliament and investigate the legitimacy of the Prince of Wales. He would respect the position of James.

On 4/14 October William responded to the allegations by James in a second declaration, denying any intention to become king or conquer England. Whether he had any at that moment is still controversial.

The swiftness of the embarkations surprised all foreign observers.

*English naval strategy

*Crossing and landing

On 16/26 October William boarded his ship, the Den Briel (Brill in English).The French fleet remained at the time concentrated in the Mediterranean, to assist a possible attack on the Papal State. Louis delayed his declaration of war until 16/26 November hoping at first that their involvement in a protracted English civil war would keep the Dutch from interfering with his German campaign. The Dutch call their fleet action the Glorieuze Overtocht, the "Glorious Crossing

*William consolidates his position

On 9 November (Julian calendar) William took Exeter after the magistrates had fled the city, entering on a white palfrey, with the two hundred black men forming a guard of honor, dressed in white, with turbans and feathers.In the South support from the local gentry was disappointingly limited,but from 12 November, in the North, many nobles began to declare for William, as they had promised, often by a public reading of the Declaration.In Yorkshire, printer John White started to print the same document for a more widespread distribution.

*The collapse of James's regime

*Departure of King and Queen

In the night of 9/10 December, the Queen and the Prince of Wales fled for France.By fleeing, James ultimately helped resolve the awkward question of whether he was still the legal king or not, having created according to many a situation of interregnum

*William and Mary made joint monarchs

On 28 December, William took over the provisional government by appointment of the peers of the realm, as was the legal right of the latter. The Lords on 6 February now accepted the words "abdication" and "vacancy" and Lord Winchester's motion to appoint William and Mary monarchs. Generally there was a great fear that the situation might deteriorate into a civil war.

四)Bill of Rights (1689) 人权法案

A bill of rights is a list of the most important rights of the citizens of a country. The

purpose of these bills is to protect those rights against infringement.

The term "bill of rights" originates from England, where it referred to the Bill of Rights 1689.

List of bills of rights

Magna Carta (1215; England)

Golden Bull of 1222 (1222; Hungary)

Statute of Kalisz (1264; Kingdom of Poland) Jewish residents' rights

Du?an's Code (1349; Serbia)

Twelve Articles (1525; Germany)

Pacta conventa (1573; Poland)

Henrician Articles (1573; Poland)

Petition of Right (1628; England)

Bill of Rights 1689 (England) and Claim of Right Act 1689 (Scotland) This applied to all British Colonies of the time, and was later entrenched in the laws of those colonies that became nations - for instance in Australia with the Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865 and reconfirmed by the Statute of Westminster 1931

Virginia Bill of Rights (June 1776)

Preamble to the United States Declaration of Independence (July 1776)

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789; France)

Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution (completed in 1789, ratified in 1791) Constitution of Greece (1822; Epidaurus)

Hatt-? Hümayun (1856; Ottoman Empire)

Basic rights and liberties in Finland (1919)

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

Fundamental rights and duties of citizens in People's Republic of China (1949)

European Convention on Human Rights (1950)

Fundamental Rights of Indian citizens (1950)

Implied Bill of Rights (a theory in Canadian constitutional law)

Canadian Bill of Rights (1960)

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982)

Article III of the Constitution of the Philippines (1987)

Article 5 of the Constitution of Brazil (1988)

New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (1990)

Charter of Fundamental Rights and Basic Freedoms of the Czech Republic (1991)

Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance (1991)

Chapter 2 of the Constitution of South Africa (entitled "Bill of Rights") (1996)

Human Rights Act 1998 (United Kingdom)

Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2005)

五)The first Parliament of Great Britain (1707)

第一个英国议会

Time:

Established in 1707, after the merger of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland

No fresh elections were held in England, and the existing members of the House of Commons of England sat as members of the new House of Commons of Great Britain.

六)Industrial Revolution (1765) 工业革命

Time:

From 1750 to 1850

Changes:

There were many changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology, which had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural

conditions of the times.

起源地:

The United Kingdom

18世纪中叶，英国人瓦特改良蒸汽机之后，由一系列技术革命引起了从手工劳动向动力机器生产转变的重大飞跃。随后向英国乃至整个欧洲大陆传播，19世纪传至北美。

Cause:

The causes of Industrial Revolution are quite complicated.

1)The colonial expansion of the 17th century

2)The scientific revolution of the 17th century

3)An outgrowth of social and institutional changes brought by the end of

feudalism in Britain after the English Civil War in the 17th century

4)Technological innovation (The heart of the Industrial Revolution)

5)The presence of a large domestic market

Main Content:

The commencement of the Industrial Revolution is closely linked to a small number of innovations, made in the second half of the 18th century:

Textiles – Cotton spinning

The cotton revolution began in Derby, which has been known since

this period as the "Powerhouse of the North".

Steam power – The improved steam engine invented by James Watt and patented

in 1775

Iron making –coke was finally applied to all stages of iron smelting, replacing

charcoal.

The second stage in the production of bar iron depended on the use

of potting and stamping (for which a patent expired in 1786) or

puddling (patented by Henry Cort in 1783 and 1784).

Technological developments in Britain

Textile manufacture

1) Lewis Paul patented the Roller Spinning machine and the flyer-and-bobbin

system with the help of John Wyatt in Birmingham.

Lewis's invention was later developed and improved by Richard Arkwright in his

water frame and Samuel Crompton in his spinning mule.

2) Metallurgy

The major change: The replacement of organic fuels based on wood with fossil fuel based on coal

Benjamin Huntsman developed his crucible steel technique in the 1740s

3) Coal mining in Britain, particularly in South Wales started early

4)The development of the stationary steam engine was an essential early element of the Industrial Revolution

5)The first of these chemicals was the production of sulphuric acid by the lead chamber process invented by the Englishman John Roebuck (James Watt's first partner) in 1746

6) Machine tools

The planing machine, the slotting machine and the shaping machine were developed in the first decades of the 19th century

7) Gas lighting

The first gas lighting utilities were established in London between the year 1812 to 1820

8) Glass making

The Crystal Palace held the Great Exhibition of 1851

9) Paper machine

A machine for making a continuous sheet of paper on a loop of wire fabric was patented in 1798 by Nicholas Louis Robert

Transport in Britain:

Canals, roads, railways

Social effects:

Industrialization led to the creation of the factory. Arguably the first was John Lombe's water-powered silk mill at Derby, operational by 1721.

A young "drawer" pulling a coal tub along a mine gallery. In Britain laws passed in 1842 and 1844 improved working conditions in mines.

The Industrial Revolution led to a population increase, but the chances of surviving childhood did not improve throughout the Industrial Revolution. There was still limited opportunity for education, and children were expected to work. In England and Scotland in 1788, two-thirds of the workers in 143 water-powered cotton mills were described as children.

The Industrial Revolution created a larger middle class of professionals such as lawyers and doctors. Health conditions for improved over the course of the 19th century because of better sanitation; the famines that troubled rural areas did not happen in industrial areas.

The history of the change of living conditions during the industrial revolution has been very controversial, and was the topic that from the 1950s to the 1980s caused most heated debate among economic and social historians. Chronic hunger and malnutrition were the norm for the majority of the population of the world including England and France, until the latter part of the 19th century.

The application of steam power to the industrial processes of printing supported a

massive expansion of newspaper and popular book publishing, which reinforced rising literacy and demands for mass political participation.

重要人物：

1712年英国人汤姆斯获得了改进的蒸汽机的专利权

1733年凯伊约翰飞梭

1765年詹姆斯哈格里夫斯珍妮纺纱机（揭开了工业革命的序幕）

1768年阿克莱特水力纺机

1769年詹姆斯瓦特改良纽可门的蒸汽机为“单动式蒸汽机”

1778年约瑟夫勃拉姆抽水马桶

1782年瓦特改良蒸汽机为“联动式蒸汽机”于1785年投入使用

1785年卡特莱特动力织机

1796年赛尼菲尔德平版印刷术

1807年富尔顿造出蒸汽机做动力的轮船

1814年斯蒂芬孙发明蒸汽机车

1815年汉戴维矿工灯

1825年斯蒂芬孙发明蒸汽机车试车成功