Britain has always had kings or queens for more than a thousand years. Kings had great power and they really made history. They started wars, made laws, and did things in their own way. But more and more power went to Parliament.

A job for life
Elizabeth II calls the Windsor family a “Firm”. She thinks of it as a business rather than a family. And the main business of the royal family is… well, probably being royal. And they are paid for it. The Queen is one of the richest women in the world. There are hundreds of traditional ceremonies which the Queen has to keep. Each year, in September or October, there is the State Opening of Parliament. The Queen, wearing her crown, arrives at the Houses of Parliament by carriage. There she reads the Queen’s Speech, which discusses the government’s work for the next year.
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He is often called an American heir of Edward Lear and Lewis Carrol. He is considered a greatest combiner of common sense and uncommon nonsense. He is a crazy storyteller and a satirist, a clown and a philosopher.
Ogden Nash (1902—1971) was born in Rye, New York. After school he studied at Harvard, but left it at the end of his freshman year. He first tried teaching at school. Then he worked as a bond salesman on Wall Street and sold only one bond— to his godmother. Then he worked at the advertising department of a publishing house. In 1931 he joined the editorial staff of the New Yorker. The same year his first collection of verses was published. The success of the book was immediate and since then Ogden Nash devoted his entire time to writing.
Nash created his own style. He is the master of surprising words which don’t seem to rhyme and yet they do, words which do not exist in the English language, still everybody easily recognises and understands them. His mad, sad, funny and brilliant verses are popular with children and with grown-ups.
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One Thursday afternoon in October 1929, a workman outside an upper floor window of a Wall Street office found himself staring into the eyes of four policemen. They reached out to catch hold of him. “Don’t jump!” shouted one of the policemen. “It’s not that bad.” “Who’s going to jump?” asked the surprised worker. “I’m just washing windows!”
To understand this incident we need to look at what had been happening in Wall Street in the months and years before that October afternoon in 1929.
Wall Street is the home of the New York Stock Exchange. Here dealers called stockbrokers buy and sell shares.
Owning shares in a business gives you the right to a share of its profits. But you can make money from shares in another way. You can buy them at one price and then, if the company does well, sell them later at a higher one.
More and more people were eager to get some of this easy money. By 1929, buying and selling shares had become almost a national hobby.
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The Tower of London was started in 1066 by William the Conqueror. He built his fortress beside the River Thames to protect London from enemies. The Tower has been many things throughout its 900-year history: a palace, a fortress, a prison, a place of execution, and even a zoo. Today, the Tower is a historical museum. There are about 150 people and eight ravens live in the Tower. Some people think there are also ghosts there.
The White Tower is the oldest building on the territory. English kings ate, slept and ran the country there. But the first person to live in the White Tower in 1100 was a prisoner named Ranulf Flambard, who escaped down a rope from an upper window. Later the Tower was made larger and stronger. The Queen’s House built for Queen Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII was the last palace built in the Tower. But she lived there only as a prisoner for 18 days awaiting her execution. She was beheaded not far from the palace — on Tower Green.
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There have been 44 presidents in the United States.

1. George Washington (1732—1799)
2. John Adams (1735—1826)
3. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
4. James Madison (1751—1836)
5. James Monroe (1758-1831)
6. John Quincy Adams (1767-1848)
7. Andrew Jackson (1767—1845)
8. Martin Van Buren (1782-1862)
9. William H. Harrison (1773-1841)
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Madam Tussaud’s is the most popular waxworks museum in the world. There are wax models of the famous and infamous, both living and dead. You can meet great characters of history and art. There are actors, film stars, pop-singers, criminals, politicians and members of the Royal family here. There is a place where you can see all the celebrities at once.
The museum is situated in Marylebone Road, not far from the street which is famous as the home of the first great detective in fiction, Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.
There are several halls at Madam Tussaud’s: the Grand Hall, the Chamber of Horrors and The Spirit of London exhibition.
The wax figures are extremely realistic. When they look at you their eyes are sparkling and you feel uncomfortable. Computer-controlled figures (audioanimatronics) are especially popular with the visitors. Their speech and sound are recordered onto CDs and synchronized with the movements.
In the Grand Hall you will find all kinds of celebrities and there is a special place for the Royal family.
Most people agree to be portrayed, but some refuse. Mother Teresa was one of the few who declined, saying her work was important, not her person.
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Independence Day is the most important American holiday. United States of America were born on July 4, 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was signed and America started the fight for freedom from British rule.
Before this date, the King of England, George III, ruled the thirteen colonies in America.
In 1767, the British government placed new taxes on tea and paper that the colonists imported from abroad. The colorists got angry and refused to pay. George III sent soldiers to keep order.
In 1772, a group of colonists dressed up as Indians threw 542 chests of tea belonging to the East India Company into the waters of Boston harbor – it was so called Boston tea party. King George didn’t think it was funny and closed Boston harbor until the tea was paid for.
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