Camping is a very popular form of living outdoors. It gives people the opportunity of spending their free time in nature or in the wilderness. Camping may start by spending the night in a tent in your own back yard and end up by going on a trip that may last for several weeks.

Some campers stay in one place for days, a week or even longer. From there they visit tourist attractions, go fishing or hunting, play games and do active sports like mountain biking or just simply relax. Others prefer to tour areas and spend every night in a different place. They travel by car or motor homes.

Each year millions of people go camping. They can explore new surroundings and be close to nature at the same time.

Image: Creazilla , Open Source

Types of Camping

Most people drive to a campsite and set up a tent there. This is easy because you can take everything you need for your camping holiday in your car with you. In most cases you will choose a campsite that is near the road.

Travelling in recreational vehicles (RV) is more comfortable but also much more expensive. These RVs range from small trailers to large mobile homes. They have all the luxuries that you would also have at home, like refrigerators, showers, sinks or toilets.

Recreational vehicle
Image: KounG on Pixabay

Boat campers travel with a canoe, kayak or even a small houseboat. They spend days on lakes or rivers and usually camp on the water’s edge nearly every night. In Western Europe, especially Holland, Belgium or Ireland you can rent a boat and travel on one of the hundreds of canals and smaller rivers that crisscross these countries.

Houseboat in Amsterdam
Image: Heribert Bechen, 5 million visits – many thanks!, CC BY 2.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Backpackers are hikers who carry their belongings on their backs. They usually go to places that you cannot reach by car. Special equipment is usually extremely light and can be carried on longer trips.

Campers who travel by bike usually can stay at normal campsites. On one side cyclists can get to places that you can’t get to by car and on the other side they travel longer distances than hikers do. They pack their things in waterproof saddlebags which they strap to the frame of the bike.

Bike set up for a camping holiday
Image: Htcltd, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Organized camping holidays usually take place during the summer and are attended by girls and boys. They combine outdoor activities with other kinds of training or with learning. Boy and girl scouts are groups of children who go on special camping trips.

Camping Equipment

If you go camping and want to spend the night in a tent you will need certain items.

Today’s tents are normally made of nylon, canvas or other light material. They are not so expensive and easy to fold together and carry around with you, especially if you are backpacking. The material has to be waterproof and is easy to put up

If you want to sleep in a tent you will need a sleeping bag. It protects you from the outside cold and is warmer than a blanket. Sleeping bags come in different sizes, colours and shapes.

Sleeping on the ground however is not always very comfortable. Some campers have foam pads or air mattresses which they lie on.

Clothing is an important aspect when you go on a camping holiday. Be sure to take clothes with you that will protect you from the sun, rain and insects. Take along some lightweight trousers, comfortable shoes and warm shirts or a jacket for cold evenings. Always carry a raincoat or poncho with you. Hiking boots are good if you walk a lot.

You will also need other everyday items such as a toothbrush, toothpaste and soap. Take along sunglasses, maps, and a compass or maybe even a GPS device.

Campers should also have waterproof matches, extra batteries, a knife and a lantern or torch with them.

Lightweight tent
Image: JJ Harrison (https://www.jjharrison.com.au/), CC BY-SA 3.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Sleeping bag
Image:Smack, Public domain,
via Wikimedia Commons

Campsite

Choosing the right place to set up a tent is not always an easy task. First choose a dry place. The open side of the tent should face away from windy and stormy directions. Remove stones and sticks from the ground. Sometimes it is necessary to dig a ditch around the tent so that water from rainfall can flow away.

If you camp in your RV make sure you have the necessary facilities you need. Many campgrounds supply you with energy and water connections. Sometimes, however, campsites require you to reserve a place in advance.

Organized campgrounds are areas that are mostly enclosed by a fence. They often provide picnic tables, grills and parking space for cars and offer extra activities for their guests.

Campsite in Japan
Image:663highland, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Camping Safety

There are some safety precautions you must take when camping outdoors.

A campfire is one of the many enjoyable parts of a camping experience, but you should do it right. Never leave your fire unattended . Always have water nearby so that you can put out the fire if it gets out of control.

Safe drinking water is also something important. Public campgrounds usually provide good water but if you camp in the wilderness make sure you have fresh and clean water supplies with you. You can also buy tablets that purify water.

If you go hiking on your camping trip be aware of other dangers. Don’t touch poisonous plants like poison oak or poison ivy. If you get caught in a thunderstorm look for shelter. If you can’t find a house or another building sit under trees in a forest. Avoid tall trees that stand alone in open areas. Get out of the water if you are swimming.

Before you leave home tell someone where you are going and when you will probably be back. If you have never been to a place before don’t go there alone. Stay calm and remain in one place in case you get lost and wait until help arrives. Carry matches with you to light a fire and keep warm. Do not rely on cell phones to call someone. Chances are that you won’t have a good reception if you are in a remote area.

Clean up your campsite when you leave. Fill all the holes that you have dug. Save your waste until you can put it in waste bins.

Rules at a campsite
Image: Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Exercises

Match the sentence parts
Words and Definitions
Too many words
Crossword

Jigsaw Puzzle

Printable Downloads (PDF)

Word List
End of Unit Test
Key

World Population From the Beginnings to the Present

Human beings have been living on Earth for over a million years, but for a long time there were not very many of them. The world’s population was never higher than 10 million. People died quickly because they didn’t have enough food to eat. Early inhabitants were mostly hunters and fishers. Some of them gathered berries from wild plants. After people started growing crops and raising animals they had more food and lived longer.

When Jesus Christ was born about 2,000 years ago about 300 million people inhabited the Earth. During the next 1500 years the population of the world grew very slowly. Many people died of illnesses and plagues . The Black Death , which sailors brought to Europe from Asia, killed about a third of the European population in the Middle Ages.

The Industrial Revolution , which began in the middle of the 18th century, started a period of rapid population growth , especially in Europe. Farmers were able to grow more and more food because they had machines to work with. New kinds of medicine helped to fight off many diseases that had killed millions of people in the centuries before. Humans also lived longer because they had cleaner drinking water.

Birth rates started to go up because families had many children. More babies than ever before survived the first few years of childhood . The one billion mark was reached in the early 1800s. In the next one hundred years the population doubled to 2 billion, and in 1960 there were 3 billion people living on Earth.

The second half of the 20th century brought along some change :

• In Europe , North America, Japan and Australia the birth rate dropped because families wanted to have fewer children. Population growth in these areas slowed down .
• In the developing countries of Asia and Africa birth rates stayed high and better medical help in these regions lowered the death rates. That is why these countries are growing very rapidly .

In the last 30 years the world’s population has doubled. The fastest growing regions are Africa with a growth rate of 2.5 %, and Latin America with a growth rate of 0.7% per year. In Europe the population is decreasing by about 0.3 %. On average, the world’s population is growing at a rate of 1.1 % per year.



World population growth in percent
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population_growth_rate_world.png ,
CC BY-SA 3.0 DEED

The 10 Most Populous Countries (2024)

Rank	Country	Population in millions
1	India	1 428
2	China	1 425
3	USA	339
4	Indonesia	277
5	Pakistan	240
6	Nigeria	223
7	Brazil	216
8	Bangladesh	172
9	Russia	144
10	Mexico	128



Continents’ share of world population – own work

Population Density

Population density tells us how many people live on one square kilometre of land. The world’s population is not spread evenly over the continents. Asia and Europe are the most densely populated continents. Many other areas of the world , like deserts, polar regions or high mountains are very sparsely ,or not at all populated .

About 90% of the Earth’s people live on only 10% of the land. Most of them live north of the equator because two thirds of the Earth’s landmasses are there.

Many people also live near coastal regions . In China, for example, 80% of the country’s inhabitants live in the eastern part of the country near the coast. In South America, most people live in the big cities, which all lie in coastal areas.

There are many reasons why people live in certain places. Areas with moderate temperatures and enough rainfall are densely populated, because people find good farming conditions there. Raw materials also attract groups of people. North-western Germany and parts of England are densely populated because coal is mined there. Economic reasons also play an important role in choosing where to live. People go to places where they can find jobs and where the economy is strong.



World Population Density
Image: English English is Correct, CC0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Population Pyramids

Population pyramids tell us how many people there are in a certain age group as well as the number of men and women in these groups.

There are three different types of pyramids:

• Countries with a fast growing population
  These pyramids show a strong base and a very narrow top. Birth rates are high and there many children and young people. People also die earlier than in Europe or North America.
• Countries with zero growth
  The number of births reached its peak during the baby boom of the 1950s and 60s. Since then the birth rate has been constant.
• Counties with declining population
  Many European countries have such a population structure. Families are having fewer children and the death rate is sometimes higher than the birth rate. The baby boomers of the past century are getting older and older, which leads to many pensioners. These countries can only grow if they have enough immigrants who come to live and work there.




Such pyramids also can tell governments which problems they will be facing in the future. Countries , in which more than half of the population is under 18, will need more and more schools and later on enough jobs to give all citizens work.

Countries with a declining population have a high number of older people. They don’t have enough young workers to pay the pension for these people when they retire. Such countries need more hospitals and old people’s homes to care for their elderly citizens.

Almost all pyramids show that, although more boys are born than girls, there are more older women than men. This is, partly, because women live longer than men—3 to 5 years on average.



Angola – Fast growing population



Jordan – Zero growth



Italy – Declining population

Source : PopulationPyramid.net Licence: CC BY 3.0 IGO

City Population

Up to the Industrial Revolution people all over the world lived mainly in the countryside. In 1800, only 3 % of the world’s population lived in cities. In 1900 only 12 cities had more than 1 million people.

Today, about half of the world’s population lives in urban areas. There are over 500 cities with more than a million people. In developed countries, up to 70 % or more live in larger cities, whereas in poorer countries this rate is below 40 %.

During the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century cities grew fast, especially in Europe and North America, because new industries were created there and people found many jobs . Later on cities grew more slowly because they became overcrowded and diseases could spread faster. Today death rates in cites are low because they have better doctors and more hospitals.

In industrialized countries the growth of cities has stopped. New York and London grew very quickly during the 1800s and early 1900s, but since then their growth has slowed down.

African and Asian cities like Lagos, Bombay or Calcutta are growing rapidly and this will probably continue during the next years. About 40 cities around the world have a population of over 5 million . They are called megacities . 80% of them are in poorer countries.

People go to the cities for many reasons. The table shows you what pulls them to the cities and what pushes them away from the countryside.

Pull Factors

• more and better jobs
• better hospitals and health care
• better living standards
• cities are social and financial centres
• better education—schools and universities

Push Factors

• too many people in the countryside
• low income
• not enough raw materials (water, wood etc..)
• the quality of farming land is getting worse



The largest cities in the world (2023) – own work

China’s One Child Policy

In 1979 the Chinese government started its “one child” policy because the population of the country was growing too fast. A married couple was only allowed to have one child. If families followed this government plan they would get free education, health care and money for their only child. However, families that had two or more children were punished. They had to pay for everything themselves and got no help from the government. They even had to pay more tax.

To help control population growth, China allowed women to have free abortions and gave them birth control pills for free.

The government’s plan also caused many problems for China. Parents often wanted to have a boy instead of a girl in order to carry on the family name. As a result female babies were often left on the streets by their mothers and some were even killed. 90% of unborn babies that are aborted are female.

In the last 40 years China’s population growth has slowed down. Without the one-child policy there would probably be about 300 million more people living in China today. The law worked mostly in cities, where the government had more control over the people. In the countryside where a lot of poor farmers and minorities lived , the laws were not so strict. People were not punished for having two or more children

China ended its one-child policy in 2016. The government started allowing families to have two children. In 2021 they allowed familes three children.



Migration

Migration means leaving your home country and living or working somewhere else. Some countries, like the USA, have a population that is made up mainly of immigrants or their descendants who have arrived there in the past 200 years.

Today, about 150 million people live outside their native countries. The biggest movements of people are from

• Central and South America to North America
• Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union to Western Europe
• Africa and Asia to Europe
• the Middle East to Europe




People leave their home countries for many reasons. Sometimes they think they can get better jobs and more money in richer countries. Sometimes they leave their own country for political reasons or because of their religion.

During the course of history people have left their homes because of unemployment, wars in their country or because of a famine. Thousands of Irish men and women left the island in the middle of the 19th century because there was a potato crisis and many of them didn’t have enough to eat.

The Balkan wars in the 1990s left millions of people homeless. They became refugees and went to neighboring countries to the north and west. Conflicts in the Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan brought over 1.5 million people to Western Europe in 2015 alone.

Some countries depend on immigrants to keep their economy running or because they have low birth rates and need foreigners to work. Today, governments in many countries face illegal immigration. Especially the USA and countries in Western Europe are sending back more and more people to their home countries.



Refugees at the Slovenian – Austrian border in 2015
Image:Borut Podgoršek, MORS, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Status of Women

The situation of women in our world today is very important. There are many differences between richer and poorer countries.

In industrialized countries birth rates have fallen since the 1960s. One reason is that more and more women have jobs and go to work. They do not want to stay at home any longer and have fewer babies.

In developing countries the situation of women is different. Many of them are at home, do the household chores and care for their children.

Helping women in the Third World is very important and can slow down the population explosion. One of the key factors is education. Women who go to school and maybe later on study at a university have higher chances of getting a job. They don’t marry so early and start having children at a later age.

Such women also know more about birth control and can plan the number of children they want to have.

Educated women also know more about health care. Young girls who have sex at an early age risk getting AIDS and passing it on to their babies when they are pregnant. More than half of the 40 million people living with AIDS today are women. In Africa, more than 75 % of all AIDS victims are young women between 15 and 24.



Number of births per 1,000 people
Image: Korakys, CC BY-SA 4.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Old Age

Developed countries all over the world have the same problem. Their birth rates are falling and people are getting older. Medical and health care is getting better all the time. We call this an ageing society.

In industrialized countries life expectancy is getting higher and higher. In most European countries women reach an average of over 80 years and men live up to about 78.

We need more and more people who care for the elderly. This means building more old people’s homes and other care units.

The government must spend more money on pensions. This won’t work if we don’t have enough young people who have jobs and pay taxes. More and more people have to work up to 65 and longer. They take away jobs that young adults need.

An older labor force means that we are not as flexible and productive as countries that have young workers.

Dangers of Overpopulation

The world’s population is growing by almost 80 million people every year. We will be facing many problems in the future:

Environmental Problems

• More and more people need room to live. They are taking away the living areas of animals and plants.
• Cities have problems making enough drinking water for thousands of people who want to start a new life there every year.
• Population in rural areas is growing too. People need more food and have to grow more crops on the same land. This means that the quality of the soil is getting worse and worse.
• More and more trees are being destroyed, especially in tropical regions. More carbon dioxide, which is usually taken up by trees, is now set free into the atmosphere. This leads to global warming.

Poverty

Population growth is highest in developing countries. Young people have to care for their parents and grandparents, so they have less money to buy the things that they need. They stay poor.

Africa is the fastest-growing continent on earth. But its people are getting poorer and poorer. Every third person in Africa doesn’t have enough to eat. The average African family has about 5 children.



Houses in a slum in Nairobi, Kenya
Image:Colin Crowley, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Food and Water

The “ Green Revolution” of the 1960s and 70s has given farmers better methods and tools to grow crops and food. But ,still, they cannot produce enough to feed the growing population. Food will get expensive for these countries because some of them have to buy it from industrial countries. Many people die of starvation and millions more will die in the future. In addition , about 400 million people all over the world live in places where there is not enough drinking water.

Unemployment

Many Third World countries have a high number of children or young people. Unemployment will be going up over the next decades, because the governments cannot create enough jobs to give work to its younger generation. Young people who can’t find any work sometimes try to get money by stealing, dealing with drugs or doing other illegal things. This might lead to social unrest in such countries.



Demonstration against unemployment in southern India
Image:No machine-readable author provided. Soman assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Exercises

Multiple Choice Cloze
TRUE or FALSE
Words and Definitions
Match the Sentence Parts
World Population in Numbers
Baby Boomers – Missing Sentence Parts
Dangers of Overpopulation – Missing Word Cloze
Megacities – Match the Numbers with the Cities
Status of Women – Too Many Words
Crossword

Word Search

Printable Downloads (PDF)

Word List
End of Unit Test
Key
]]> https://topics.english-online.at/sherpas-mountain-people-of-the-himalayas/ Mon, 05 Feb 2024 18:10:03 +0000 https://topics.english-online.at/?p=1306 Sherpas are people who live in the northeastern part of Nepal, in the valleys of the Himalaya Mountains. There are about 40,000 sherpas , many of which live near Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain.They probably came to Nepal from Tibet in the early part of the 16th century. Sherpas still have many customs and traditions of the Tibetan people and they also dress in Tibetan clothes.

Most sherpas are Tibetan Buddhists. They have no written language and worship the mountains around them, which they view as the home of the gods. Mount Everest, for example, is called Chomolungma, the Mother of Gods.

At first the world did not know very much about the sherpas. They lived alone in their villages, traded goods and grew corn and potatoes. When the British started mountain climbing expeditions in the 20 th century they used sherpas as guides. With the help of yaks sherpas helped mountaineers bring their heavy loads into great heights.



Sherpa boy carrying a heavy load
Image: © Vyacheslav Argenberg / http://www.vascoplanet.com/, CC BY 4.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Over the years sherpas have been admired for their physical strength. They need less oxygen to breathe and can work better at high attitudes and in thin air. Even today sherpas rely on walking to move around. There are no cars or other vehicles.

In 1953 a sherpa named Tensing Norgay and Edmund Hillary, a mountaineer from New Zealand, became the first people to get to the top of Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain.

Helping tourists get to the top of high mountains has become is a great source of income. While mountain climbers pay around $ 60,000 for an expedition, sherpas earn $2,000 and more on a trip. Some of them have even started their own business, or operate hotels and lodges for tourists. Even though sherpas know the region better than anyone else they risk their lives on expeditions. About a third of the people who have died trying to conquer Mount Everest have been sherpas.

In the last few decades many international organizations have helped sherpas improve their life. A foundation set up by Sir Edmund Hillary has brought health care and modern medicine to remote villages. Water power plants and hospitals have also been set up. The tourist industry has made life easier for most sherpas. Many have adapted to a more western way of life even though some of them still live as their ancestors did many centuries ago.



Tensing Norgay (left) and Sir Edmund Hillary
Photo from the collection of John Henderson
Image:Dirk Pons, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Exercises

Match the sentence parts
Missing Word Cloze
Crossword

Printable Downloads (PDF)

Word List
End of Unit Test
Key
]]> https://topics.english-online.at/childhood-obesity/ Sat, 27 Jan 2024 06:29:25 +0000 https://topics.english-online.at/?p=862 Studies have shown that about 30% of all children in America aged 6 to 19 are either overweight or obese. That is almost one out of three young Americans. The situation in the countries of the European Union is similar.

The body mass index (BMI) is a formula to measure obesity. It uses a combination of height and weight. A BMI score of 25 or higher shows that you are overweight, and a BMI of over 30 indicates obesity.



Childhood Obesity
“Teen and childhood obesity” by Gaulsstin is licensed under CC BY 2.0 

Who is at risk ?



Regular exercise helps to control your weight
Image: https://pixabay.com/vectors/woman-exercising-biking-fitness-32818/

If you are gaining weight it does not always mean that you are becoming obese. Children and young adults need nutrients in order to grow, so they gain weight as time goes on. However, if you consume more than you need and begin putting on extra weight you may be on the road to obesity – combined with all kinds of health problems.

Here are some signs that tell you if you are at risk:

• Children who have obese parents or grandparents are in greater danger of becoming obese than others
• If diseases like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes or heart illnesses run in your family you might be at risk too.
• Bowed legs at an early age can be a warning signal for obesity.
• Depression and a lack of confidence have also been connected to obesity.
• People who don’t get enough exercise and sit around and do nothing all day long are definitely more at risk than others.

What causes childhood obesity?

The explanation is really simple: if you take in more energy in the form of food than you use up you will gain weight. There are, however, many factors that can influence this.

Genes determine how your body stores food and how well it turns food into energy. Our bodies are built to store energy in fat cells for times when food is scarce. But not all bodies are the same. Your genes come from your parents, so overweight parents are more likely to have overweight children.

Although you may have good genes you still can become obese. One of the main causes of obesity is the lack of physical exercise. An average child spends less time exercising than children did ten or twenty years ago. Our free time activities have changed. Instead of going outside and doing something physical children sit still for hours in front of computers, TV and video games.



Image : https://pixabay.com/illustrations/remove-overweight-children-adults-1050369/

Snacks and Fast Food

Many of us eat up to four meals a day thanks to excessive snacking. And when we have a snack we don’t eat a carrot or an apple. Instead we reach for junk food. But this is not always the children’s fault. Schools are full of vending machines that offer high calorie snacks and sugary soft drinks. To make things worse they are bombarded with TV ads and commercials for unhealthy food. An average American eight-year old watches more than four thousand food ads a year. About 35% of these ads are for candy and snacks, another 10% for fast food.

Fast food is another reason for obesity. While some fast food chains offer healthy alternatives, these aren’t what people order. Today’s families also eat out a lot more than earlier generations.



Vending machine with snacks in Hong Kong
Images : Waoceanu, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Eating Habits at Home

If you develop healthy eating habits, you’ll be more likely to keep a healthy weight. And it’s at home where we form such habits.

If your parents are overweight or obese chances are that you may have seen wrong eating habits your whole life. Children who observe their parents eat a cookie instead of a piece of fruit, take their meals in front of the TV set or eat too quickly are more likely to do the same. This increases their chances of becoming overweight children and, later on, adults.

What Childhood Obesity Can Lead To

Apart from the need for larger school desks and airline seats, what else is there to worry about.

• Type 2 diabetes was once thought to be a disease that mainly affected adults, but this not longer true. It can lead to blindness, heart and kidney diseases and damage your nerves.
• Studies have shown that obesity can cause children with asthma to use more medicine and wheeze more. Overweight children and adolescents are more likely to have high blood pressure than children with a normal weight.
• Sleeping disorders are among the most common consequences of childhood obesity. Some children may even have pauses in their breathing during sleep. If not treated it may lead to a series of other illnesses, including heart and lung problems.



Obesity can lead to high blood pressure
Image: https://pixabay.com/de/photos/arzt-untersuchung-blutdruck-4303020/

Videos

Childhood obesity 10 times higher than in the 1970s
Childhood obesity

Exercises

Multiple Choice Cloze
Words and Definitions
Match the Sentence Parts
Eating Habits – Missing Word Cloze
Crossword

Printable Downloads (PDF)

Word List
End of Unit Test
Key
]]> https://topics.english-online.at/jeans-history-and-popularity-of-great-clothes/ Fri, 26 Jan 2024 18:07:15 +0000 https://topics.english-online.at/?p=846 Jeans have become one of the most worn pieces of clothing in the world. Everybody wears them, from the rural farmer to the urban lawyer and from models to housewives. But why have jeans become so popular. You’ll get many answers. For some people they look cool, for others jeans are simply comfortable.



Image : uploaded by Juanmak,
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Jeans were first designed as durable trousers for farm workers and miners in the states of the American west. A Nevada tailor, Jacob Davis, had the idea of using copper bolts at the corner of the pockets to make them stronger. They became popular instantly and soon many people bought them.

Although Davis knew that he had a great product which many people wanted to buy, he didn’t have the money to patent it. He asked Levi Strauss, who supplied him with cloth, to help him out. The two worked together and started making jeans out of denim, which was more comfortable and could be easily stretched. It also became softer as it got older. They were dyed with indigo because it did not go through the cloth like other dyes do.



Jacob Davis – inventor of jeans
Image: unknown(Life time: 1908), Public domain,
via Wikimedia Commons



Levi Strauss
Image : Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

At first jeans were worn only by workers, especially in factories. In the eastern part of the US jeans were hardly worn at all. They were associated with rural people and the working class. But when rich easterners went on holidays to escape everyday life they often put on jeans.

James Dean and Marlon Brando made them popular in movies and everyone wanted to wear them. Jeans became a symbol of the youth rebellion during the 1950s and 1960s. College students started to wear them as a protest against the Vietnam War and the establishment. The new trousers were banned in American schools and sometimes in theatres and cinemas. As time went on jeans became more acceptable and today they are worn not only as casual clothes but also at formal events.



President Ronald Reagan wearing jeans in the 1970s
Image: See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Source : http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/photo.html

Other countries quickly started to get accustomed to wearing jeans too. American servicemen on duty in Europe and Japan often wore them when they were not on duty to show that they were Americans. The trousers showed the world a happier way of life, something that people needed, especially after what they had endured in World War II.

Jeans were also worn because they made people equal. You could afford them and they couldn’t be torn so easily. They had practical advantages as well. They didn’t need to be washed as often as other trousers and women didn’t need to iron them. This became more important as more and more women started working and had less time for housework.

Today jeans are an essential part of our lives. They are almost always washed a few times before being sold to give them their faded appearance.

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