Scots begin to enjoy themselves.People invite their friends to their houses and sit the old year out and the new year in.In England on new Year's Eve a

Year Children are happy to have presents.

Four times a year the offices and banks in Britain are closed on Monday. These public holidays are known as Bank Holidays.The British like to spend

of which culture).

1949.Today computers have become common they can do fantastic things. Computer can condukt experiments in places which are too dangerous for

people.Some computers are used in carves and mines to replace workers.Besides thay can be designed for special purposes. Thay can solve mathimatical

Science and technology have acheeved great progress in spase research.There have been space flights,the launching of interplanetary stations in the

direction of Mars,Radar contacts with the planets Mercury and Venus.Science enters own flats.Many people have already forgotten what the world was like

without science.

what Lincoln did.He was born in 1809 in a small farm in Kentucky. When Abrahamwas quite young, the family moved to the wild forest land of Indiana. He

hardly had any education; he only learned to read and write and dosimple arithmetic. In 1830 Abraham left his father's farm and went toSpringfield, Illinois. There he became a clerk in a store and worked hardto improve his education. In 1836 he became a lawyer.

Slavery was then becoming a burning questions American politics.Many people in the Northern states wanted to abolish it, the Southern states

opposed the abolition. The Southerners said that it would mean economicruin for them. The reason was that the prosperity of the South was based on

cotton-growing, and only Negroes worked there. The

population of about 11 million people.London has been a capital for nearly a thousand years. Many of its

thousands of new flats and houses.By the day the whole of London is busy. At night, offices are quiet

pubs, restaurants and night clubs are busy half the night.

rebuilt.The present-day Moscow is the seat of the government of the RussianFederation. President of Russia lives and works here; government offices

sister, Sofya. In 1696 he became a sole ruler.He was a healthy, lively and clever child. He loved miEtary games

he increased the power of the monarch and reduced the power ofthe boyars and the church.In foreign policy. Peter I waged a war with Turkey ( 1695-1696) and

the Great Nothern War with Sweden ( 1700-1721), and a war with Persia(1722-1723). In these wars, he wanted to get access to the Baltic, BlackSea and the Caspian Sea. He managed to get the shores of the Baltic Sea

and and the Caspian Sea.Peter I played a great part in Russian history. After his death, Russiawas much more secure and progressive than it had been before his

reign.

Pushkin is the most important Russian writer of all time, likeShakespeare in England or Dante in Italy. Pushkin provided thestandards for Russian arts and literature in the 19th century.Pushkin was born in Moscow in 1799 into an upper-class family.In 1811 he entered a lyceum at Tsarskoye Solo. The education offered

series of verse tales followed- «The Prisoner of the

writers of the world.

The capital of Russian Federation is Moscow, with the populationof about 10 million people.Russia is a presidedtial republic. It is one of the leading powers in

the world.

of Minnesota is the land of 10 000 lakes. The longest