Music & Pop Culture
North America
COUNTRY FLAG CAPITAL CITY CURRENCY LANGUAGE
United States of America Washington US Dollar English
Canada Ottawa Can Dollar English & French
Monuments and Landmarks
Mount Rushmore (South Dakota) Empire State Building (New York)
Statue of Liberty (New York) Niagara Falls (Ontario)
Northamerican cuisine
Mainstream American cuisine is similar to that in other Western countries. Wheat is the primary cereal grain. Traditional American cuisine uses indigenous ingredients, such as turkey, venison, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup, which were consumed by Native Americans and early European settlers. Slow-cooked pork and beef barbecue, crab cakes, potato chips, and chocolate chip cookies are distinctively American foods.The American fast food industry, the world's largest, pioneered the drive-through format in the 1930s. Fast food consumption has sparked health concerns. During the 1980s and 1990s, Americans' caloric intake rose 24%; frequent dining at fast food outlets is associated with what public health officials call the American "obesity epidemic". Highly sweetened soft drinks are widely popular, and sugared beverages account for nine percent of American caloric intake.
Holiday in North America
July 4th: US Independent Day - This was the day the United States of America was born. Since 1776, USA took indepencence from England.
Third monday in January - Martin Luther King's Day: Honors Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Civil Rights leader, who was actually born on January 15, 1929.
Thanksgiving Day - 4th thursday of november - Traditionally celebrates the giving of thanks for the autumn harvest. Traditionally includes the sharing of a turkey dinner. Traditional start of the Christmas and holiday season.
Boxing Day - December 26th - A holiday with mixed and uncertain origins and definitions. Provincially, a statutory holiday in Ontario. A holiday in New Brunswick under the Days of Rest Act.
Sport in North America
American football (known as football in the United States and gridiron in some other countries) is a sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field 120 yards long by 53.33 yards wide with goalposts at each end. The offense attempts to advance an oval ball (the football) down the field by running with or passing it. They must advance it at least ten yards in four downs to receive a new set of four downs and continue the drive; if not, they turn over the football to the opposing team. Most points are scored by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone for a touchdown or kicking the ball through the opponent's goalposts for a field goal. The team with the most points at the end of a game wins.
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America, and is widely considered to be the premier men's professional basketball league in the world. It has thirty franchised member clubs (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). Some teams are the Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Lakers or New York Knicks. Some legendary players were "Magic" Johnson, Larry Bird or Michael Jordan.
Lacrosse (French: crosse), a team sport, originally played by the indigenous peoples of North America, using a small rubber ball and a long-shafted stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick. The boys/men's version of the game is a contact sport, which requires padding such as shoulder pads, gloves, helmets, elbow pads, cup, and sometimes rib guards. The girls/women's game limits stick contact and prohibits body contact, requiring little protective equipment. However as of 2003, women's lacrosse required the wearing of a protective face mask, commonly referred to as the "goggle," in the United States, while it remains an optional piece of protective equipment in the international version of the game. Also, women usually wear kilts as a uniform in comparison to men who wear full upper body protection with jerseys and simple athletic wear on the bottom.Offensively, the objective of the game is to score by shooting the ball into an opponent's goal, using the lacrosse stick to catch, carry, and pass the ball to do so. Defensively, the objective is to keep the opposing team from scoring and to gain the ball through the use of stick checking and body contact or positioning.
Ultimate is a limited-contact team field sport played with a disc (frisbee). Points are scored by passing the disc to a teammate in the opposing end zone. Other basic rules are that players must not take steps while holding the disc (maintain a pivot), and interceptions and incomplete passes are turnovers. Under fair weather conditions the game can be fluid and beautiful. At peak play there is a higher cooperation within the striving competition. Rain, wind, or occasionally other adversities can make for a testing match, with rapid turnovers, heightening the pressure of play.
A skateboard is a type of sports equipment used primarily for the activity of skateboarding. It usually consists of a specially designed maplewood board combined with a polyurethane coating used for making smoother slides and stronger durability.A skateboard is propelled by pushing with one foot while the other remains on the board, or by pumping one's legs in structures such as a pool or half pipe. A skateboard can also be used by simply standing on the deck while on a downward slope and allowing gravity to propel the board and rider. If the rider positions their right foot forward, he/she is said to ride "goofy;" if the rider positions their left foot forward, he/she is said to ride "regular." If the rider is normally regular but chooses to ride goofy, he/she is said to be riding in "switch," and vice versa. A skater is typically more comfortable pushing with their back foot; choosing to push with the front foot is commonly referred to as riding "mongo."
Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice towards a target area which is segmented into four concentric rings. It is related to bowls, boules and shuffleboard. Two teams, each of four players, take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones, also called rocks, across the ice curling sheet towards the house, a circular target marked on the ice. Each team has eight stones. The purpose is to accumulate the highest score for a game; points are scored for the stones resting closest to the centre of the house at the conclusion of each end, which is completed when both teams have thrown all of their stones. A game may consist of ten or eight ends.
Ice hockey is a team sport played on ice in which skaters use sticks to shoot a hard rubber hockey puck into their opponent's net to score points. In some countries, such as Canada, the United States and those of Europe like Sweden among others, it is known as "hockey"; the name "ice hockey" is used in countries where "hockey" generally refers to field hockey.A team usually consists of four lines of three forwards, three pairs of defensemen, and two goalies. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take the puck and score a goal against the opposing team. Each team has a goaltender who tries to stop the puck from going into the goal.A fast-paced physical sport, hockey is most popular in areas of North America (particularly Canada and northern parts of the United States) and Europe. In North America, the National Hockey League (NHL) is the highest level for men's hockey and the most popular. Ice hockey is the official national winter sport of Canada, where the game enjoys immense popularity.
Music in North America
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. Bluegrass was inspired by the music of Appalachia. It has mixed roots in Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and English traditional music, and also later influenced by the music of African-Americans through incorporation of jazz elements. Unlike mainstream country music, bluegrass is traditionally played on acoustic stringed instruments. The fiddle, five-string banjo, guitar, mandolin, and upright bass (string bass) are often joined by the resonator guitar (also referred to as a Dobro) and (occasionally) harmonica. This instrumentation originated in rural dance bands and is the basis on which the earliest bluegrass bands were formed.
Barbershop vocal harmony, as codified during the barbershop revival era (1930s–present), is a style of a cappella, or unaccompanied vocal music, characterized by consonant four-part chords for every melody note in a predominantly homophonic texture. Each of the four parts has its own role: generally, the lead sings the melody, the tenor harmonizes above the melody, the bass sings the lowest harmonizing notes, and the baritone completes the chord, usually below the lead. The melody is not usually sung by the tenor or baritone, except for an infrequent note or two to avoid awkward voice leading, in tags or codas, or when some appropriate embellishment can be created. Occasional passages may be sung by fewer than four voice parts.