After Britain won a costly war with France in the 1750s, the colonists were asked to help pay for the war, and for Britain’s large empire. These policies restricted the colonists’ way of life.

For example, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 restricted the colonists from settling new land. The Currency Act of 1764 made it illegal to print paper money in the colonies. The Quartering Act of 1765 forced the colonists to provide food and housing for the royal soldiers. The Stamp Act of 1765 taxed all legal papers, licenses, newspapers, and leases.

The Stamp Act united the colonists in an organized resistance. The main problem was that they weren’t allowed to participate in the government that taxed them.

In October 1765, 27 delegates from nine colonies met in New York. They passed resolutions saying that the individual colonies should have the right to impose their own taxes. This satisfied most of the delegates, but a small number of radicals wanted independence from Britain.

One of those people was Samuel Adams of Massachusetts. He wrote newspaper articles and made speeches. The groups he helped to organize became a big part of the revolutionary movement.

By 1773, colonial traders, who were angry with British regulation of the tea trade, were interested in Sam Adams’s ideas. In December 1773, a group of men sneaked on three British ships in Boston harbor and threw the cargo of tea overboard. This event became known as the Boston Tea Party.

The British Parliament punished Massachusetts by closing Boston’s port and by restricting local authority. Colonists called these new laws the Intolerable Acts and united to oppose them. All the colonies except Georgia sent representatives to Philadelphia in September 1774 to talk about their “present unhappy state.” It was the First Continental Congress.

Colonists were angry with the British for taking away their rights, but not everyone agreed on the solution. Loyalists wanted to stay subjects under the king. Moderates wanted to compromise and build a better relationship with the British government. The revolutionaries wanted complete independence. They began collecting weapons and getting men ready—waiting for the fight for independence.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys,the Light of Knowledge.

One hundred years ago, in 1859,41 boys sat in this room

and were asked the same question…

that now greets you at the start of each semester .

Gentlemen,what are the Four Pillars ?

Tradition. Honor. Discipline . Excellence.

In her first year,Welton Academy graduated five students.

Last year we graduated 51.

And more than 75 percent of those went on to the lvy League .

This-This kind of accomplishment is the result

of fervent  dedication to the principles  taught here.

This is why you parents have been sending us your sons.

This is why we are the best

preparatory school  in the United States.

As you know,our beloved  Mr. Portius

of the English Department retired  last term.

You will have the opportunity later to

meet his replacement, Mr. John Keating,

himself an honors graduate of this school.

And who, for the past several years, has been teaching.

at the highly regarded Chester School in London.

People came for different reasons. Some left their homes to escape war. Others sought political or religious freedom. Some had to work as servants to pay back the cost of their trip before gaining their freedom. Some, like black Africans, arrived as slaves.

In time, the 13 colonies developed within three distinct regions.

The first settlements were along the Atlantic coast and on rivers that flowed into the ocean. In the Northeast, trees covered the hills and stones filled the soil, but water power was available. The Northeast was called New England, and it included Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. The economy was based on timber, fishing, shipbuilding, and trade.

The middle colonies included New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. The weather was milder and the countryside was more varied. People worked in industry and agriculture. The society was more diverse and sophisticated. People living in New York came from all over Europe.

The Southern colonies included Virginia, Georgia, and North Carolina and South Carolina. The growing season was long and the soil was fertile. Most people were farmers. Some owned small farms that they worked themselves. The wealthy farmers owned large plantations and used African slaves as workers.

The relationships between settlers and Native Americans (also called Indians) were good and bad. In some areas, the two groups traded and were friendly. In most cases, as the settlements grew bigger, the settlers forced the Indians to move.

1) force :to make someone do something they do not want to do

As time went on, all the colonies developed governments based on the British tradition of citizen participation. In Britain, the Glorious Revolution of 1688–1689 limited the power of the king and gave more power to the people. The American colonists closely observed these changes. Colonial assemblies claimed the right to act as local parliaments. They passed laws that limited the power of the royal governor and increased their own authority.

Disagreements between the royal governors and the assemblies continued. The colonists realized that their interests often were different from Britain’s interests. At first, the colonists wanted self-government within a British commonwealth. Only later did they want independence.

The most recent Ice Age was about 35,000 years ago. Much of the world’s water was frozen into big sheets of ice. A land bridge-as wide as 1,500 kilometers-joined Asia and North America. By 12,000 years ago, humans lived throughout much of what now are the Americas.

The first “Americans” crossed the land bridge from Asia. Historians believe that they lived in what now is Alaska for thousands of years. They moved south into today’s mainland United States. They lived by the Pacific Ocean in the Northwest, in the mountains and deserts of the Southwest, and along the Mississippi River in the Midwest.

These early groups are known as Hohokam, Adenans, Hopewellians, and Anasazi. They built villages and grew crops. Their lives were connected to the land. Family and community were important to them. History shows they told stories and shared information mostly by talking, not writing. Some used a form of picture writing called hieroglyphics. Nature was important to their spiritual beliefs. Some groups built big piles of earth in the shapes of snakes, birds, or pyramids. The different groups traded with each other, but they also fought.

No one knows why, but these groups disappeared. Other groups, Hopi and Zuni, later came to this land and prospered. By the time the first Europeans arrived, about two million native people lived in what now is the United States.

Historians believe that the Norse may have been the first Europeans to arrive. They came from Greenland, where Erik the Red had started a settlement around 985. In 1001, Erik’s son, Leif, explored the northeast coast of what now is Canada. Remaining pieces of Norse houses were found in northern Newfoundland.

It took almost 500 years for other Europeans to reach North America, and another 100 for them to build permanent settlements. The first explorers did not know about America. They were looking for a way to go to Asia from Europe by sea. Other Europeans who arrived later-mostly Spanish and Portuguese, but also Dutch, French, and British-came for land and the riches of the “New World.”

The most famous explorer was Christopher Columbus. He was Italian, but Queen Isabella of Spain paid for his trips. Columbus landed on islands in the Caribbean Sea in 1492. He never reached what is now the United States.

In 1497, John Cabot, an explorer sailing for England, landed in eastern Canada. His arrival established a British claim to land in North America.

During the 1500s, Spain explored and claimed more land in the Americas than did any other country. In 1513, Juan Ponce de Léon landed in Florida. Hernando De Soto landed in Florida in 1539 and then explored all the way to the Mississippi River.

Spain conquered Mexico in 1522. In 1540, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado wanted to find the mythical Seven Cities of Cibola. He started looking in Mexico and then traveled north to the Grand Canyon in Arizona and into the Great Plains.

Other Europeans, such as Giovanni da Verrazano, Jacques Cartier, and Amerigo Vespucci, explored further north. The two American continents were named after Amerigo Vespucci.

The first permanent European settlement in North America was Spanish. It was built in St. Augustine in Florida. Thirteen British colonies to the north would later form the United States. Virginia and Massachusetts were the two earliest.

It wasn’t just explorers who settled in the New World. People started to come to the New World to live. These people were immigrants from Europe.

People have been like, “You can’t do this, or you can’t do that.” I was just raised that if I believe I can do it, I will.

这是今天早晨看CNN studentnews时，里面一个叫Jason Willams 说的，这个人没有右手，但是他居然从音乐学校毕业了，吉他弹的非常好。所以对比我们自己来说，我们总是抱怨没有这个资源，没有哪个条件。你说跟人家比比，我们多差劲啊。

关键还有一点，人家说了：

I’m a real simple guy. I don’t need a whole lot. I don’t wanna be rich; I don’t wanna be super famous. I just wanna be able to play my guitar and have fun doing it, and I’m gonna do that as long as I can.

多牛啊，这是什么境界啊。我们应该更懂的这些道理啊。