Famous people of America

MARK TWAIN

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known to most people as Mark Twain, was born and spent his boyhood in a small town on the Mississippi River. When he grew up, he became a river pilot. Later he went west and worked as a newspaper reporter. While he was on this job he began to sign his articles “Mark Twain”. From then on Clemens used Mark Twain as his pen-name.

Clemens worked on other newspaper, travelled, and gave lectures.

Clemens spent his summers on his farm. There he wrote “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”, published in 1876. Tom in the story is really Mark Twain. Huckleberry Finn is his close boyhood friend, Tom Blankenship.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the United States. He was born in Kentucky in 1809. His family was very poor. When Lincoln was a boy, he worked on his family’s farm. He did not go to school. He taught himself to read and write. Later, Lincoln studied law and became a lawyer. After that, he became a politician.

Everybody liked Abraham Lincoln because he was intelligent and hard-working. Lincoln was very ambitious. He wanted to be good at everything he did. He said that he wanted to win the “race of life”. He was also kind and honest. People called him “Honest Abe”.

Lincoln became president in 1860. In 1861, there was a war between the North and the South of the United States. The people in the South wanted a separate government from the United States. The North wanted the United States to stay together as one country. Lincoln was the leader of the North. In the war, brother killed brother.

THOMAS ALVA EDISON

Thomas Alva Edison was born in 1847. He was sick a lot when he was young. Edison’s mother taught him lessons at home and he only studied the things he wanted to know. At the age of ten, he read his first science book. After he read the book, he built a laboratory in his house. Soon, Edison started to invent things. He was interested in the telegraph and electricity.

Did you know Edison invented wax paper, fire alarms, the battery, and motion pictures? But his favourite invention was the phonograph, or record player. He invented the phonograph in 1876. His other famous invention was the light bulb.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY

Ernest Hemingway is one of the greatest 20th-century American writers. His incredible career, and the legend which developed around his impressive personality, was that of a man of action, a devil-may-care adventurer, a brave war correspondent, an amateur boxer, a big-game hunter and deep-sea Fisherman. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Theodore Roosevelt was the twenty-sixth president of the United States. He was president from 1901 to 1909. He was a very intelligent man. He was also very energetic. He was a boxer, a soldier, a rancher, and an explorer Theodore Roosevelt’s nickname was “Teddy”. Everybody called him Teddy. When he was president, he often went hunting. One day he went hunting with some friends and saw a little bear. He did not shoot the bear. He said the bear was too small and must go free. The next day the story of the little bear was in the newspapers. The newspapers named the little bear “Teddy” after the president. Soon people called toy bears for children “teddy bears”.

Martin Luther King, Jrwas an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience. King has become a national icon in the history of modern American liberalism. On October 14 1964, King received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence.

We know many other famous americans: the father of Disney cartoons - Walt Disney, a well-known writer of short stories – O. Henry, the inventor of the telephone Alexander Bell.