[00:10.00]Now, the VOA Special English program,
[00:15.20]WORDS and THEIR STORIES.
[00:17.60]Almost all American cities have nicknames.
[00:22.80]They help establish a city's identity.
[00:26.30]They can also spread unity and pride among its citizens.
[00:31.69]Two east coast cities -- Philadelphia and Boston
[00:36.88]-- were both important
[00:38.84]in the early history of the United States.
[00:42.44]Philadelphia is best known as The City of Brotherly Love.
[00:48.73]In sixteen eighty-one, King Charles the Second of England
[00:54.53]gave William Penn a large amount of land to establish a colony.
[01:01.19]The king named the colony Pennsylvania in honor of Penn's father.
[01:08.13]William Penn was a Quaker.
[01:11.48]He brought his beliefs about equality,
[01:15.04]religious freedom and brotherly love to this new land.
[01:20.75]Penn was also an expert in Latin and Greek.
[01:25.79]He established a city and named it Philadelphia,
[01:30.76]which is Greek for "brotherly love."
[01:34.81]An ancient city called Philadelphia
[01:38.55]was also noted in Christianity's holy book, the Bible.
[01:44.05]Philadelphia became the social,
[01:47.40]political and geographical center of the American colonies.
[01:53.05]In the late seventeen hundreds,
[01:56.16]many events that took place in Philadelphia
[02:00.40]gave birth to the American Revolution and independence.
[02:05.84]For example, the Declaration of Independence
[02:10.00]and the Constitution were signed in the city.
[02:14.44]Philadelphia was the temporary capital of the new nation
[02:19.28]from seventeen ninety to eighteen hundred.
[02:23.12]Some of Philadelphia's other nicknames are The Quaker City,
[02:29.52]The Cradle of Liberty and The Birthplace of America.
[02:34.93]Philadelphia is a long name.
[02:38.47]So many people just call it Philly.
[02:42.33](Music)
[02:48.21]Boston is another important city.
[02:51.56]It is one of the oldest cities in the United States.
[02:56.41]In sixteen thirty, Puritan settlers from England established Boston
[03:02.85]in what would become the state of Massachusetts.
[03:07.20]Several major events took place in Boston before
[03:12.40]and during the American Revolution.
[03:15.40]You may have heard of the Boston Massacre,
[03:19.08]the Boston Tea Party and the Battle of Bunker Hill.
[03:23.73]So, like Philadelphia, Boston is called The Cradle of Liberty.
[03:30.73]Another nickname is The Cradle of Modern America.
[03:35.49]However, Boston's most famous nickname is Beantown.
[03:41.90]But it was not because the city grew a lot of beans.
[03:46.77]In the seventeen hundreds, Boston was a major trading center.
[03:52.91]It received a lot of sugarcane from the West Indies.
[03:57.57]Beans baked in molasses, a sugar product,
[04:02.67]became a favorite food in the city.
[04:05.98]Today, no companies there make Boston baked beans.
[04:11.52]Restaurants in Boston rarely serve it.
[04:15.38]But many Americans eat this tasty dish at home.
[04:20.39](MUSIC)