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(单词翻译)

VOICE ONE:

This is Sarah Long.

VOICE TWO:

And this is Rich Kleinfeldt with THE MAKING OF A NATION, a VOA Special English program about the history of the United States.

(MUSIC)

Today, we tell about the start of the American colonies' war for independence from Britain in the late seventeen hundreds.

VOICE ONE:

The road to revolution lasted several years.  The most serious events began in seventeen seventy.  War began five years later.

Relations between Britain and its American colonists1 were most tense in the colony of Massachusetts.  There were protests against the British policy of taxing the colonies without giving them representation in Parliament.  To prevent trouble, thousands of British soldiers were sent to Boston, the biggest city in Massachusetts.  On March fifth, seventeen seventy, tension led to violence.  This is what happened.

VOICE TWO:

 
The Boston Massacre2 in 1770, as drawn3 by Henry Pelham
It was the end of winter, and the weather was very cold.  A small group of colonists began throwing rocks and pieces of ice at soldiers guarding a public building.  They were joined by others, and the soldiers became frightened.  They fired their guns.

(SOUND)

Five colonists were killed.  The incident became known as the Boston Massacre.

VOICE ONE:

The people of Massachusetts were extremely angry.  The soldiers were tried in court for murder.  Most were found innocent.  The others received minor4 punishments.  Fearing more violence, the British Parliament cancelled most of its taxes.  Only the tax on tea remained.

This eased some of the tensions for a while.  Imports of British goods increased.  The colonists seemed satisfied with the situation, until a few years later.  That is when the Massachusetts colony once again became involved in a dispute with Britain.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

The trouble started because the British government wanted to help improve the business of the British East India Company.  That company organized all the trade between India and other countries ruled by Britain.  By seventeen seventy-three, the company had become weak.  The British government decided5 to permit it to sell tea directly to the American colonies.  The colonies would still have to pay a tea tax to Britain.

The Americans did not like the new plan.  They felt they were being forced to buy their tea from only one company.

VOICE ONE:

Officials in the colonies of Pennsylvania and New York sent the East India Company's ships back to Britain.  In Massachusetts, things were different.  The British governor there wanted to collect the tea tax and enforce the law.  When the ships arrived in Boston, some colonists tried to block their way.  The ships remained just outside the harbor without unloading their goods.

 
Detail from 'Boston Tea Party' by W.D. Cooper, published in the 1789 book 'The History of North America'
On the night of December sixteenth, seventeen seventy-three, a group of colonists went out in a small boat.  They got on a British ship and threw all the tea into the water.  The colonists were dressed as American Indians so the British would not recognize them, but the people of Boston knew who they were.  A crowd gathered to cheer them.  That incident -- the night when British tea was thrown into Boston harbor -- became known as the Boston Tea Party.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Destroying the tea was a serious crime.  The British government was angry.  Parliament reacted to the Boston Tea Party by punishing the whole colony of Massachusetts for the actions of a few men.  It approved a series of laws that once again changed relations between the colony and Britain.

One of these laws closed the port of Boston until the tea was paid for.  Other laws strengthened the power of the British governor and weakened the power of local colonial officials.

In June, seventeen seventy-four, the colony of Massachusetts called for a meeting of delegates from all the other colonies to consider joint6 action against Britain.

VOICE ONE:

This meeting of colonial delegates was called the First Continental7 Congress.  It was held in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in September, seventeen seventy-four.  All the colonies except one was represented.  The southern colony of Georgia did not send a delegate.

The delegates agreed that the British Parliament had no right to control trade with the American colonies or to make any laws that affected8 them.  They said the people of the colonies must have the right to take part in any legislative9 group that made laws for them.

VOICE TWO:

 
As one of its final acts, on October 25, 1774, the First Continental Congress approved a petition to King George III
The First Continental Congress approved a series of documents that condemned10 all British actions in the American colonies after seventeen sixty-three.  It approved a Massachusetts proposal saying that the people could use weapons to defend their rights. It also organized a Continental Association to boycott11 British goods and to stop all exports to any British colony or to Britain itself.  Local committees were created to enforce the boycott.

One of the delegates to this First Continental Congress was John Adams of Massachusetts.  Many years later, he said that by the time the meeting was held, the American Revolution had already begun.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Britain's King George the Second announced that the New England colonies were in rebellion.  Parliament made the decision to use troops against Massachusetts in January, seventeen seventy-five. 

The people of Massachusetts formed a provincial12 assembly and began training men to fight.  Soon, groups of armed men were doing military exercises in towns all around Massachusetts and in other colonies, too.

VOICE TWO:

British officers received their orders in April, seventeen seventy-five.  By that time, the colonists had been gathering13 weapons in the town of Concord14, about thirty kilometers west of Boston.  The British forces were ordered to seize the weapons.  But the colonists knew they were coming and were prepared.

Years later, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem about what happened.  The poem tells about the actions of Paul Revere15, one of three men who helped warn the colonial troops that the British were coming:

(SOUND)

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.
On the eighteenth of April in Seventy-five
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town tonight
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light, --
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

VOICE ONE:

 
British troops, sent to secure American arms and supplies, were resisted by Massachusetts militiamen at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. This document printed a few days later shows coffins16 representing the Americans killed. 
When the British reached the town of Lexington, they found it protected by about seventy colonial troops.  These troops were called "Minute Men" because they had been trained to fight with only a minute's warning.  Guns were fired.  Eight colonists were killed.

No one knows who fired the first shot in that first battle of the American Revolution.  Each side accused the other.  But the meaning was very clear.  It was called "the shot heard round the world."

(SOUND)

VOICE TWO:

From Lexington, the British marched to Concord, where they destroyed whatever supplies the colonists had not been able to save.  Other colonial troops rushed to the area.  A battle at Concord's north bridge forced the British to march back to Boston.

It was the first day of America's war for independence.  When it was over, almost three hundred British troops had been killed. Fewer than one hundred Americans had died.

VOICE ONE:

The British troops had marched in time with their drummers and pipers.  The musicians had played a song called "Yankee Doodle."  The British invented the song to insult the Americans.  They said a Yankee Doodle was a man who did not know how to fight.  After the early battles of the revolution, the Americans said they were glad to be Yankee Doodles.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Following the battles at Lexington and Concord, the Massachusetts government organized a group that captured Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain in New York State.  The other colonies began sending troops to help.  And another joint colonial meeting was called:  the Second Continental Congress.  That will be our story next week.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Today's MAKING OF A NATION program was written by Nancy Steinbach.  This is Sarah Long.

VOICE TWO:

And this is Rich Kleinfeldt.  Join us again next week for another Special English program about the history of the United States.
______

This was program #11 in

 


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 colonists 4afd0fece453e55f3721623f335e6c6f     
n.殖民地开拓者,移民,殖民地居民( colonist的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • Colonists from Europe populated many parts of the Americas. 欧洲的殖民者移居到了美洲的许多地方。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Some of the early colonists were cruel to the native population. 有些早期移居殖民地的人对当地居民很残忍。 来自《简明英汉词典》
2 massacre i71zk     
n.残杀,大屠杀;v.残杀,集体屠杀
参考例句:
  • There was a terrible massacre of villagers here during the war.在战争中,这里的村民惨遭屠杀。
  • If we forget the massacre,the massacre will happen again!忘记了大屠杀,大屠杀就有可能再次发生!
3 drawn MuXzIi     
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的
参考例句:
  • All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
  • Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。
4 minor e7fzR     
adj.较小(少)的,较次要的;n.辅修学科;vi.辅修
参考例句:
  • The young actor was given a minor part in the new play.年轻的男演员在这出新戏里被分派担任一个小角色。
  • I gave him a minor share of my wealth.我把小部分财产给了他。
5 decided lvqzZd     
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
参考例句:
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
6 joint m3lx4     
adj.联合的,共同的;n.关节,接合处;v.连接,贴合
参考例句:
  • I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤,肩膀脫臼了。
  • We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。
7 continental Zazyk     
adj.大陆的,大陆性的,欧洲大陆的
参考例句:
  • A continental climate is different from an insular one.大陆性气候不同于岛屿气候。
  • The most ancient parts of the continental crust are 4000 million years old.大陆地壳最古老的部分有40亿年历史。
8 affected TzUzg0     
adj.不自然的,假装的
参考例句:
  • She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
  • His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。
9 legislative K9hzG     
n.立法机构,立法权;adj.立法的,有立法权的
参考例句:
  • Congress is the legislative branch of the U.S. government.国会是美国政府的立法部门。
  • Today's hearing was just the first step in the legislative process.今天的听证会只是展开立法程序的第一步。
10 condemned condemned     
adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词
参考例句:
  • He condemned the hypocrisy of those politicians who do one thing and say another. 他谴责了那些说一套做一套的政客的虚伪。
  • The policy has been condemned as a regressive step. 这项政策被认为是一种倒退而受到谴责。
11 boycott EW3zC     
n./v.(联合)抵制,拒绝参与
参考例句:
  • We put the production under a boycott.我们联合抵制该商品。
  • The boycott lasts a year until the Victoria board permitsreturn.这个抗争持续了一年直到维多利亚教育局妥协为止。
12 provincial Nt8ye     
adj.省的,地方的;n.外省人,乡下人
参考例句:
  • City dwellers think country folk have provincial attitudes.城里人以为乡下人思想迂腐。
  • Two leading cadres came down from the provincial capital yesterday.昨天从省里下来了两位领导干部。
13 gathering ChmxZ     
n.集会,聚会,聚集
参考例句:
  • He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
  • He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。
14 concord 9YDzx     
n.和谐;协调
参考例句:
  • These states had lived in concord for centuries.这些国家几个世纪以来一直和睦相处。
  • His speech did nothing for racial concord.他的讲话对种族和谐没有作用。
15 revere qBVzT     
vt.尊崇,崇敬,敬畏
参考例句:
  • Students revere the old professors.学生们十分尊敬那些老教授。
  • The Chinese revered corn as a gift from heaven.中国人将谷物奉为上天的恩赐。
16 coffins 44894d235713b353f49bf59c028ff750     
n.棺材( coffin的名词复数 );使某人早亡[死,完蛋,垮台等]之物
参考例句:
  • The shop was close and hot, and the atmosphere seemed tainted with the smell of coffins. 店堂里相当闷热,空气仿佛被棺木的味儿污染了。 来自辞典例句
  • Donate some coffins to the temple, equal to the number of deaths. 到寺庙里,捐赠棺材盒给这些死者吧。 来自电影对白

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