Americans did not invent "fast food", any more than they invented cars or television; they were just the first to refine (усовершенствовались)it into an art, and spread the art worldwide.

   Before Ronald McDonald was even born, the British were into hot fast food, in the form of fish 'n' chips. Precursors of today's drive-thru (Предшественники современных транспортных средств), sit-down or carry-out burger restaurants and other fast-food outlets торговые точки, British fish 'n' chip shops had for many years been offering customers a real meal to eat in the street. In the olden days, people ate fish 'n' chips wrapped in old newspaper, and used their fingers to eat them with.

   Other forms of fast food were common all over the world too; the "packed lunch", some bread and something to eat with it, was part of the daily routine of millions of industrial and agricultural workers all over Europe and North America for over a century.

   American-style "fast food" took existing models (существующие модели) and refined (улучшили)them, to create a new style of eating adapted to the high-speed mobile life-styles of the modern age.

   As its name implies, a "Hamburger" was originally a German dish that originated in Hamburg (and has nothing to do with ham, in spite of modern derivatives such as chicken-burger and beefburger). Its repackaging (переупаковка) as the most popular type of fast food was however an American achievement, as America was the first nation in the world to master modern methods of large scale food production, distribution and conservation (notably deep freezing).

   Even in the 1960's, steak was still an expensive luxury for most people in Europe; but in America it was already an everyday dish. Furthermore, fast food outlets, offering cheap cooked meals, corresponded ideally to the needs of an increasingly mobile and increasingly busy society.

   In the sixties, American lifestyles were far ahead of those of most Europeans; but since then, Europe has caught up. Ronald McDonald's Golden Arches have sprung up in and around virtually every big town and city in Europe, and across much of the rest of the world too; and even such typically "American" styles of fast food, such as Tex-Mex, are following in the international traces of the hamburger franchises, thanks to television and the popularity of American youth culture.

   Americans can no doubt be forgiven for saying such things as "It's as American as pizza". Even if this other classic dish is of Mediterranean origin, it is America that has spread its popularity around the world.

It is not made of silicon; and it is not a river valley; but forgetting that, Silicon Valley is probably the most famous valley in the world. Although it is not the place where the first computer was built (that was Manchester, England), Silicon Valley, near San Francisco,  was the birthplace of the modern computer industry.

    For this, we can say thankyou to scientists at the universities in California, and to the Hippies of the 1960's.

    It was in the nineteen-sixties that American "youth culture" really began. California, of course, already existed; but the Sixties Generation rediscovered it.

    At the time there were really two different forms of youth culture; the "Beach Boy" culture on the one hand, and the anti-establishment hippies and radical students on the other hand; and they all dreamed of California.

    For the Beach Boys, that meant southern California, where they could sing about surfing and cars; for the Hippies and radicals, it meant San Francisco, "flower power" and revolutionary new ideas. The campuses at Berkeley and Stanford University, near San Francisco, were hot-beds of new ideas, new technology, new culture, and new ways of living.

      When they finished university, many of the best students did not look for jobs with big companies like Ford or Exxon. Instead they wanted to be free and run their own operations.... and stay in California, not far from San Francisco. Silicon Valley is thus a group of small towns, including Palo Alto and San José,  a few miles south of San Francisco.

Today, young people from all over come to Silicon Valley to learn about computers.

    The high-technology industry was already present around San Francisco. Intel had been founded in 1968, and in the same year the first computer mouse was built at Stamford University. In 1970, Xerox opened a research center in Palo Alto. There were also other electronics companies, like Hewlett Packard, and Fairchild, the world's first "semiconductor" company.

    Then, in 1976, an electronics student called Steve Jobs started a small computer company in his garage; he gave it the same name as the Beatles' record company: Apple.

    Very soon,  more  companies, like Seagate and Google appeared. "Silicon Valley" had arrived. There was even a sort of primitive Internet connecting many addresses in Silicon Valley, called the Arpanet.

  Today, Silicon Valley is still the home of the computer industry; it is still full of high technology, but it is not the only center for high-tech in the USA.  Today here are computer firms all over the USA.... and all over the world; but Silicon Valley still has the largest concentration of high-tech companies and research centers.

      Microsoft, the world's biggest high-tech company, is not based in Silicon Valley. It is further north, near Seattle in the state of Washington.