People who visit the United States sometimes wonder how the states got their names. Some of the most interesting names came from American Indian languages. For example, Illinois was named for the Indians who used to live in that part of the country. In their language, Illinois means \"Brave Men\". Connecticut means \"At the Long River Mouth\" in the language of the Indians who used to live there.
Twenty-five of the states have Indian names, but other names were taken from different languages. Georgia and Pennsylvania have names which were taken from the Latin language. Florida and Colorado were named by Spanish people. States like New Hampshire and New Jersey were named for places in England.
The two newest states have names which did not come from any of those languages. Hawaii got its name from a word in the Hawaiian language which means \"Homeland\". Alaska was named by the Russians, from whom Alaska was bought in 1867.
Task 2
The circle of stones that can be seen at Stonehenge on the Salisbury Plain in England is one of the oldest and most mysterious monuments in the world. The monument was probably put up between 2000 B.C. and 1400 B.C. When it was completed it consisted of a double circle of stones, with two more groups of stones outside the circles. Many of the stones used in this monument must have been transported some 240 miles to Stonehenge. Single stones, some of them weighing about 4 tons, must have been sent on rivers and rolled over land on tree trunks. They couldn’t have been carried! The men who moved the stones didn’t have wheels or horses. Each stone had to be moved by hand and placed in position. They were fitted together with great technical skill.
There are many theories about the purpose of the stones. Stonehenge was certainly a meeting place. The stones have been arranged in a particular way to mark sunrise and sunset at certain times during the year. This may have been a place of worship of the sun and also an observatory. Another interesting theory suggests that the stones were some kind of computer which was used to predict eclipses of the sun and moon.
Task 3
Human beings have been painting pictures for at least 30,000 years. The earliest pictures were painted by people who hunted animals. They used to paint pictures of the animals they wanted to catch and kill. Pictures of this kind have been found on the walls of caves in France and Spain. No one knows why they were painted there. Perhaps they had a magic purpose; perhaps the painters thought that their pictures would help them to catch these animals; or perhaps human beings have always wanted to tell stories in pictures.
About 5,000 years ago the Egyptians and other people in the Near East began to use pictures as a kind of writing. They drew simple pictures or signs to represent things and ideas, and also to
represent the sounds of their language. The signs these people used became a kind of alphabet.
The Egyptians used to record information and to tell stories by putting picture-writing and pictures together. When an important person died, scenes and stories from his life were painted and carved on the walls of the place where he was buried. Some of these pictures are like modern comicstrip stories. It has been said that Egypt is the home of the comic strip. But, for the Egyptians, pictures still had magic power. So they did not try to make their way of writing simple. The ordinary people could not understand it.
By the year 1000 B.C., people who lived in the area around the Mediterranean Sea had developed a simpler system of writing. The signs they used were very easy to write, and there were fewer of them than in the Egyptian system. This was because each sign, or letter, represented only one sound in their language. The Greeks developed this system and formed the letters of the Greek alphabet. The Romans copied the idea, and the Roman alphabet is now used all over the world.
These days, we can write down a story, or record information, without using pictures. But we still need pictures of all kinds: drawings, photographs, signs and diagrams. We find them everywhere: in books and newspapers, in the street, and on the walls of the places where we live and work. Pictures help us to understand and remember things more easily, and they can make a story much more interesting.
Task 4
The earliest use of the name Norwich is on an Anglo-Saxon coin, from the time of King Athelstan (924–939). You can see the word \"Norvic\" round the edge. We know that the Anglo-Saxons farmed in this district, and had a market. We think the Normans held their market in the same place, so Norwich market is nearly 1,000 years old. For centuries people have come to the market to buy and sell, and today Norwich has the largest open-air market in England.
When the Normans conquered England in the 11th century A.D., Norwich was one of the largest cities in England, with a population of 5,500. Under the Normans the city became a centre of the wool trade. Since 1066 no foreign army has invaded Britain, but many refugees had fled from Europe and settled in different parts of the country. In the 16th century many weavers came to Norwich from the Netherlands to escape religious problems at home. These cloth-workers numbered about 6,000 of the population of just over 16,000. A large building was called after these settlers, Strangers' Hall.
William the Conqueror built a wooden castle in Norwich in 1067, and 60 years later the Normans built a stone castle. At first it was an army centre, but from 1220 to 1887 the castle was the prison for the whole county of Norfolk. Down in the dungeons you can still see death masks of the prisoners. This Norman castle is one of the largest in England. Its walls are 21 metres high, 30 metres along each side and 3 metres thick. The early walls were made of Caen stone, but between 1834 and 1839 builders repaired the walls with new stone from Bath.
Norwich Cathedral, in the heart of the city, is one of the most beautiful in Britain. The first Bishop
of Norwich began the cathedral in 1069. He brought beautiful white stone from Caen, in Normandy. The Normans shipped the stone to Great Yarmouth on the coast, and then up the river Wensum. The builders had to dig a short canal from the river to the cathedral. People used this canal for about 300 years, but now you cannot see it. Its path was from the street called Lower Close to Pulls Ferry. Another bishop added the spire in the 15th century. It is 96 metres high, so only Salisbury Cathedral in the west of England is taller. Inside the cathedral there are wonderful Norman columns and a beautiful roof. Between 1465 and 1536 workers carved and painted stories from the Bible on special bosses.
Task 5
Britain's industrial heritage is probably richer than that of any other nation, for it was here during the course of the 18th and early 19th centuries that occurred the series of major technological advances which heralded the greatest social and economic upheaval in the history of mankind—the upheaval which became known as the Industrial Revolution.
Mining, iron-smelting, the making of textiles and pottery—all these industries had been carried on in Britain for centuries. What was revolutionary was the sheer scale of production made possible by the harnessing of a whole range of newly devised machinery: first to water wheels and later to a completely new source of power—steam.
This enormous and rapid increase in mechanization took British industry out of the small workshop and craftsman’s cottage and into the factory, perhaps employing thousands of workers. Entire new cities were developed in the new industrial centres to house them.
Meanwhile, advances in industry were matched by development in engineering and transport. New networks of roads and canals were constructed to transport goods and raw materials more cheaply and efficiently. Later still came the railways.
The speed of this transformation was dramatic. In less than 100 years from the middle of the 18th century, Britain changed from a predominantly agricultural nation into the world’s first great industrial power—the envy of all, and the model for industrialization everywhere.
Today, Britain is a treasure-house of relics from this remarkable period. Thanks to the increasing interest in industrial archaeology, many important industrial sites have been restored, buildings and other structures have been saved from demolition, and machinery of all types, including examples of the world’s earliest steam engines, have been preserved—either in site or as exhibits in one of the growing number of industrial museums.
Then there are several mines and other industrial undertakings run as \"working\" museums, lovingly preserved steam railways, companies still using traditional methods who welcome visitors... The list is endless. Add to it the many surviving relics of an even earlier age, such as windmills, water mills, medieval mines and ancient quarries, and you have a unique and fascinating record of industrial development down the centuries.
Task 6
During the Mayan Classical Period, from 300 to 900 A.D., the central area was very important culturally. There were many large ceremonial centers in the central area. Tikal was the largest known center. Originally, people did not live in these centers. The centers were used only for religious ceremonies, and as market places. These centers were empty except on market days and religious festivals. At those times thousands of people came in from the countryside.
Apparently, toward the end of the Classical Period, in about 700 A.D., more and more people began to move into these market centers. They used these market centers as a place to live. This increase in population caused problems for the farmers near the centers. The farmers near the market centers had only a small amount of good farming land. But they had to grow more and more food on their land in order to feed the people in the market centers. It became more and more difficult for them to raise enough food.
Because of overcrowding, the centers became noisy and polluted. Water pollution was one of the greatest problems in the centers. Because the population grew so quickly, the centers didn’t have good enough systems for bringing in clean water and for getting rid of dirty water.
So this movement to the market centers caused several serious problems for the Mayas in the central area.
At the end of the 9th century, the population in the market centers dropped sharply. Many people moved to the north—to places like Uxmal and Kabah. The market places, the great buildings, the great artistic achievements were left behind.
Historians have studied these questions. Why did the population drop? Why did the Mayas leave the market areas? Why did they move to the North where it was so dry and where the soil was so poor?
One theory is that the centers collapsed because of war. There might have been a civil war between the farmers and the people who governed.
Another theory is that the centers collapsed because of environmental reasons. The overcrowding, the pollution may have caused such serious problems that people were no longer able to live in the centers.
In any case, the greater Mayan civilization began to decline around 900 A.D. People are still studying the Mayan culture and trying to learn about why the civilization declined.
Task 7
It was around 1300 B.C. that the first known writing appeared in the Shang civilization—writing that developed more than three thousand characters, partly pictorial and partly phonetic. This
writing was done on plate-like portions of the bones of cattle or deer, on seashells and turtle shells and perhaps on wood. They were inscriptions concerned with predicting the future. By applying a pointed, heated rod to a bone or shell, the item cracked, and to which written symbol the crack traveled gave answers for various questions: what the weather was going to be like, would there be flood, would a harvest succeed or fail, when might be the best time for hunting or fishing, questions about illness or whether one should make a journey.
The people of the Shang civilization appeared to have had the same religious impulses as others. They saw nature as numerous gods using magic, gods called gui-shen, a word for ghost or spirit. They had a god they thought produced rain. They had a god of thunder and a god for each mountain, river and forest. They had a mother god of the sun, a moon goddess, and a god of the wind. Like others who worked the soil, they had a fertility god. They believed in a master god who had a palace in the center of heaven and who rewarded people for being virtuous.
Like priests in West Asia, the priests of the Shang civilization made sacrifices to their gods, attempting to bribe them, believing that the gods could exercise either benevolent or malevolent magic. The frequency of floods and other calamities led the people of Shang civilization to believe that some gods were good and others demonic. And they believed in an evil god who led travelers astray and devoured people.
The people of the Shang civilization believed in an invisible heaven that people went to when they died. Shang kings told their subjects that heaven was where the ancestors of the Shang kings dwelled. Aristocrats were concerned with their status and boasted about their ancestral roots. They kept records of their family tree, and they saw their ancestors as going back to gods who often took the form of animals—gods who became family symbols like the totems. The common people, on the other hand, had no surnames and no pedigree and did not participate in ancestor worship.
Aristocrats believed that humans had a spirit that was created at conception. They believed that this spirit both continued to reside in one's body after death and ascended to the invisible world where the spirits and the dead dwelled. Aristocrats believed that in this invisible world their ancestors resided in the court of the gods and had powers to help guide and assist their living descendants. Aristocrats saw their ancestors as needing nourishment. At gravesites they offered food and wine to their deceased family members and ancestors—a ritual that males alone were allowed to perform, adding to the preference for the birth of a male into a family. They believed that if offerings to the dead were discontinued, the spirits of the dead would become lost and starving ghosts who, in revenge, might do evil. When an aristocrat wanted a special favor from an ancestor, he supplemented the offerings by sacrificing animals. And, like Abraham, the Shang knew of human sacrifice. If a king wanted a special favor from the gods, he might sacrifice a human.
Task 8
It was probably around 3,000 years ago that people first began making things to help them measure the passage of time. Having observed that shadows move around trees as the sun moves across
the sky, someone drew a circle and put a stick in the center. As the sun passed overhead, he marked even divisions on the circle as the shadow of the stick crossed it. Then people could tell which part of the day it was by noticing which mark on the circle the shadow fell across. These circles were called \"sundials\". Later, they were made of stone and metal to last longer.
Of course, a sundial did not work at night or on cloudy days, so men kept inventing other ways to keep track of time. One invention was a striped candle. Each stripe took the same amount of time to melt. If each stripe melted in about an hour, about three hours would have passed when three stripes melted.
A water clock was another way to tell time. A container had a line with a number beside it for every hour. It also had a tiny hole in the bottom. The container was filled with water that dripped through the hole. When the water level reached the first line, people knew that an hour had passed. Each time the water level fell to another line, one more hour had passed.
Candles and water clocks helped people know how much time had gone by. But candles had to be remade, and water clocks had to be refilled. So, after glass blowing was invented, the hourglass came into use. Glass bulbs were joined by a narrow tunnel of glass, and fine, dry sand was placed in the top bulb. The hourglass was easy to use, but it had to be turned over every hour so the sand could flow again.
It was about 600 years ago that the first clock with a face and an hour hand was made. One of the first such clocks was built for a king of France and placed in a tower of the royal palace. The clock did not show minutes or seconds. Usually it did not even show the correct hour! Since there were no planes or trains to catch, however, people were not concerned about knowing the exact time.
Gradually, clocks began to be popular. They still did not keep correct time, but they were unusual, and they could be beautifully decorated. One clock was in the shape of a cart with a horse and driver. One of the wheels was the face of the clock.
Watches came into use as soon as clocks were made small enough to be carried. These did not always tell the correct time, either. They were often put into beautiful watchcases, which were made to look like anything the owner wanted.
The pendulum clock was invented in 1657. This was the beginning of the style of clocks we call\"grandfather clocks\hours more exactly than earlier clocks, since the weight on the pendulum could be moved up or down to make the clock go faster or slower. About forty years later, minute and second hands were put on some clocks. Grandfather clocks are very much in demand again today. They are usually very expensive, however, and require more space than other styles of clocks.
As people began to go to more places and do more things, they were more interested in knowing the correct time. By 1900, almost every house had a clock, and nearly every well-dressed gentleman wore a watch on a chain tucked in his vest pocket.
Today, of course, we have electric clocks that keep giving the right time until they are unplugged or the electricity goes off. Scientists have invented clocks that look like large machines and tell the correct time to a split second.
The most modern electric clocks for home use do not have faces or hands. These clocks are called digital clocks, and they tell the time with a set of numerals which appear in a little window. The seconds are counted off like the tenths of a mile on the odometer of a car.
Many electric clocks are combined with radios, which can sometimes be set to turn on automatically. Thus, instead of an alarm ringing in your ear in the morning, you can hear soft music playing when it is time to get up. Some clocks will even start the coffee maker!
Task 9 Scott Simon: (Host)
When the New York City subway was built 100 years ago, it was a marvel of engineering—it still is. Other subways had already been started in London, Paris, a few other places, but the geological difficulties of building an underground system on a crowded and rocky island were unique. As part of NPR's series on the 100-year anniversary of the New York City subway system, Robert Smith travels to the deepest station in Manhattan to tell the story of the men who built it.
It's easy to think that the only vertical variation in Manhattan is in the height of the skyscrapers, but New York City on the ground is anything but flat. Riding the path of the original subway line, you can see the challenge that early builders faced. North of Harlem, the subway emerges from a tunnel, and within seconds it's racing along a high trestle over the Manhattan valley. It's actually very hilly.
Vivian Heller is the author of The City Beneath Us, the history of the subway system. As the subway plunges back underground, she points out the window at the other thing that made building subways so difficult.
The actual rock itself is so treacherous and unstable, that was another element that they had to work with that was tricky.
The early workers built most of the subway with a
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technique known as cut and cover. They dug a trench, laid the rails, and then covered it over again. But up here in northern Manhattan, cut and cover would have made the subway feel like a roller coaster, so in order to keep the train level, planners had to go deep.
It was 180 feet, so it was really a mining operation because of the depth involved. So now we're at 191st Street.
A hundred and ninety-first. This is the Ft. George tunnel section.
\"This station is at the deepest point of the original line, and it has the wet chill of a cave. This section would prove the most challenging to the chief engineer and visionary of the New York subway,\" William Barclay Parsons.
He was chosen to be chief engineer when he was 35 years old, and many people felt that he was much too young for this huge undertaking. He was interrogated very closely and revealed a knowledge of all of the systems of the city that was incredibly minute and detailed, and actually he just astonished everyone.
The cut-and-cover sections of the subway were built mostly by unskilled laborers, African-Americans and Irish and Italian immigrants. But Parsons knew he would need specialists for the tunneling sections. Clifton Hood is a history professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. He wrote a subway history called 722 Miles.
These were miners who came from the anthracite coal mines in eastern Pennsylvania. They came from silver mines in Colorado, from the Klondike gold strike. They came from South Africa's gold and diamond mines. They were highly skilled workers who were paid about $3.75 a day, which was quite a good wage in those times, and they came with real skills.
Not much is known about the men's lives. They stayed in rowdy boarding houses up above the tunnel in Washington Heights, and dance halls and casinos opened to serve them. In photos from the time, they stand with their faces in deep shadow,
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Task 10
their black hats and vests covered in a light rock dust. They would drill holes for explosives, set them off, clear out the rubble, build framing, and then do it all over again. It was loud and smelly work and sometimes deadly. The worst disaster in the building of the subway took place just a few hundred feet from the 191st Street station in October of 1903. Author Vivian Heller.
The poignant thing about the Ft. George disaster is that the tunnel was almost completed when it occurred, and the schedule had been stepped up. The contractor was pressing the foremen, so they had gone from doing two blasts a day to doing three blasts a day.
After one of those blasts, a supervisor gave the all clear and the men went back inside the tunnel. Then a 300-ton boulder fell from the roof.
Six are killed instantly and several more are very, very badly hurt. There's a Catholic priest who bravely goes down, ministers the last rites to these men, most of them Italian men crushed so badly they're not recognizable, their names aren't even known. They're described in the newspapers just by their employment number.
Engineer William Parsons, when he wrote about the incident in his journal, didn't even mention that in the end 10 people died in the accident. Clifton Hood says that in the technological triumph of the subway, the story of the people who built it has gotten lost. We ignore these workers. They're not given much attention in the triumphal accounts of the subways. You don't see their images on any of the stations. Most New Yorkers who ride through the subway don't give a single thought to the fact that real people actually built it, and in some cases died and were injured building it. That's a part of the story that I think we really need to get back in. The only monument that exists to the workers of the tunnels is the subway itself and the city it transformed. Robert Smith, NPR News, New York.
The University of Oxford, situated in the city of Oxford, England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. The universities of Oxford and Cambridge are sometimes referred to collectively as Oxbridge. The two universities have a long history of competition with each other, as they are the two oldest and most famous universities in England.
The date of Oxford’s foundation is unknown, and indeed it may not have been a single event, but there is evidence of teaching there as early as 1096. When Henry II of England forbade English students to study at the University of Paris in 1167, Oxford began to grow very quickly. The foundation of the first halls of residence, which later became colleges, dates from this period and later. Following the murder of two students accused of rape in 1209, the University was disbanded, and this led to the foundation of the University of Cambridge. In 1214, the University returned to Oxford with a charter, and the University’s status was formally confirmed.
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