ЕГЭ по английскому языку (аудирование №11: детальное понимание текста)

Who invented it first?

I’m not really what you would call a patriot, but of course, I love my country. I was born as a result of pure chance on an island off the northern coast of Europe called the United Kingdom — in the southern part of it called England. So I can’t see the reason for being proud of my country. I had nothing to do with its history or achievements. I just happened to be born there. If I was born in France or America or Russia, maybe I would feel differently. I don’t know. But as with most English people I’m not really into waving flags or boasting about achievements in one field or another. We’re happy enough to celebrate Ireland’s St Patrick’s Day on the 17th of March or even the 4th of July for the Americans but we’re not too fussed about our own national day — St George’s — on the 23rd of April.

Nevertheless, I do find it as a minimum interesting how many inventions were discovered in the UK. Over the past 50 years, according to Japanese research, more than 40 per cent of discoveries taken up on a worldwide basis originated in the United Kingdom. Many of these
British inventions have had an enormous impact on the world. For example, imagine how different life would be today if Michael Faraday hadn’t built the first simple electrical generator or if James Watt hadn’t developed the steam engine?

I also find it interesting and even more amusing to see the international arguments over who invented what, especially between the UK and the USA. For example, the Americans claim the first powered flight as their invention for the Wright brothers in 1903. But the British claim that the invention belonged to a British man, Percy Pilcher, who designed and built a powered aeroplane in 1899. Unfortunately, Pilcher died before being able to fly it, but he was still (the Brits say) the inventor.

The Americans, similarly, claim that Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. But Sir Joseph Swan of Newcastle announced that he had made a working light bulb on the 18th of December, 1878 and on the 18th of January, 1879 he gave a public demonstration in Sunderland — 10 months before Edison. The Americans say it was just a working model and not a commercial reality, but then they would say that, wouldn’t they?

The first telephone message was made at 5 Exeter Place, Boston, Massachusetts on the 10th of March, 1876. Alexander Graham Bell called to his assistant, ‘Come here, Watson, I want you.’ The rest is history. But Alexander Graham Bell was born in 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He moved to Canada for health reasons when he was 23, and only then migrated to the USA. He was British, so Brits can rightly claim the telephone as a British invention.

In 1896 Guglielmo Marconi won even greater fame for sending a wireless telegraph over 94 miles. But David Edward Hughes, born in London of Welsh parents, is recorded as the first person in the world to transmit and receive radio waves in 1879. Yet another British first!

So forget the Wright Brothers, Marconi and Thomas Edison. All they had was good PR. In their own quiet, modest way the Brits were always first there. As if it had anything to do with me or as if I really care!