Jazz is a form of music that originated in southern UNITED States in the late 19 th century, as a
development of the songs and spirituals of Afro-American slaves, with melodies that incorporate both
African and European music , It is a strongly rhythmic form of music, incorporating elements of ragtime,
the blues and folk music. One popular early form came from New Orleans and was sometimes called
Dixieland jazz, which could be deeply emotional. In improvised (or improve.) jazz, the players make the
music up as they go along. Jazz is also renowned for long soloes by players such as clarinetists and
saxophonists. Jazz led to the development of swing in the 1920s, the ‘big band’ sound of the 1940s
onwards and later forms including fusions with other types of music, such as funk, and free jazz.

According to an ancient Greek myth, the god Pan invented the first musical instrument – the pipes that
are named after him – after he accidentally breathed heavily through old reeds beside a river and
produce a wail. He so liked the sound that he broke the reeds off and tied them together. Because the
reeds were different lengths they produce different notes. Although this is a myth, not reality, it shows
that most early musical instruments may have been made because someone noticed a natural effect
and decided to make use of it. The first instruments were probably drums, made of hollow logs, and
sticks that were hit together to provide a beat for dancing. Animal horns were later used to make simple
wind instruments and early stringed instruments include the lyre, in which strings are strung from a
simple frame and plucked.

The ability to make a ball swerve through the air rather than follow a straight line is a valuable one in
many sports, whether as a pitcher in baseball, a spin bowler in cricket or a footballer taking a penalty.
The curve occurs because of the ‘Bernoulli effect’, which was discovered by scientist Daniel Bernoulli.
When the player wants to make the ball follow a curve through the air, he makes it spin as it leaves his
hand or foot. As it spins, air is pulled with it through friction, and this works together with the current
created by its motion trough the air. On one side of the ball, the air passing it and the air spinning
around it go in the same direction, allowing it to move faster, while on the other side of the ball, the air
spinning around it is in the opposite direction to the air current passing the ball, which slows it down
and makes it curve.

Stars and Stripes - also called ‘Old Glory’, or ‘Star-spangled Banner’, is the flag of the United States of
America. It consist of white stars (50 from July 4, 1960) on a blue background, with a field of 13 alternate
stripes, 7 red and 6 white. The 50 stars stand for the 50 states of the Union, and the 13 stripes stand for
the original 13 states that signed the Declaration of Independence. After the beginning of the American
Revolution, the first unofficial national flag – known variously as the Grand Union Flag, the Great Union
Flag, or the Cambridge Flag – was hoisted outside Boston, on January 1, 1776, It was hoisted, it appears,
at the behest of General George Washington, whose headquarters were nearby, The flag had seven
red and six white horizontal stripes and, in the background, the British Union Flag (the immediate
predecessor of Union Jack).

The sundial was one of the earliest devices for measuring time. But it can work only on a day with
plenty of sunlight. Early peoples also used ropes with knots tied at regular intervals. In the ninth century
candles were marked with regularly spaced lines, but this was not very accurate as a draught could
cause the candle to burn more quickly. When burned, such devices measured time. An hourglass or
sandglass tells time by means of sand trickling through a narrow opening. A water clock, clepsydra,
measures time by allowing water to drip slowly from one marked container into another. By the 1700s,
people had developed clocks and watches that told time to the minute. Modern electronic and atomic
clocks can measure time with far greater accuracy.

If we think about different types of clocks and watches, we associate some of them with different
countries: grandfather clocks and marine chronometers from England, cuckoo clocks from both
Germany and Switzerland, precision-engineered jeweled watches from Switzerland, too, and digital
watches from countries in south-east Asia such as Japan. Watches are very important to the Swiss
economy as these expensive items are sold all over the world.