American History: US Adopts Neutrality as World War One Begins in Europe

Credits for VOA SPECIAL ENGLISH

Photo: loc.gov

British forces in action during World War One

BOB DOUGHTY: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A hNATION – American history in VOA Special English.

In nineteen fourteen, Europe exploded into the First World War. It was a war no nation really wanted. But no nation seemed able to stop it.

The assassination of Austria's Archduke Franz Ferdinand in the city of Sarajevo was the spark that set off the explosion.

This week in our series, Harry Monroe and Kay Gallant tell about the war and how it affected the United States under President Woodrow Wilson.

HARRY MONROE: The Austrian Archduke was murdered by Serbian nationalists. They opposed Austrian control of their homeland. After the assassination, Austria declared war on Serbia. One of Serbia's allies was Russia. Russia agreed to help Serbia in any war against Austria.

Austria had allies, too. The most important was Germany. Germany wanted Russia to stay out of the war. When Russia refused, Germany declared war on Russia. Then Germany declared war on Russia's close ally, France. Britain entered the war a few days later when Germany violated the neutrality of Belgium.

loc.gov

An abandoned British trench captured by the Germans. German soldiers are on horseback in the background.

KAY GALLANT: One nation after another entered the conflict to protect its friends or to honor its treaties. Within a week, most of Europe was at war.

On one side were the Central Powers: Germany and Austria-Hungary. On the other side were the Triple Entente Allies: France, Britain, and Russia. Many other nations took sides. Bulgaria and Turkey joined the Central Powers. Italy, Romania, Portugal, and Greece joined the Allies.

HARRY MONROE: The United States hoped to stay out of the war. President Wilson immediately declared American neutrality. He said: "It is a war with which we have nothing to do, whose causes cannot touch us."

Most Americans agreed with President Wilson. They did not want to get involved in the fighting. However, many found it difficult to remain neutral in their hearts. Some Americans had family roots in Germany. They supported the Central Powers. A greater number of Americans had family roots in Britain or France. They supported the Allies.

Yet the official American policy was neutrality. The United States planned to continue to trade with both sides.

KAY GALLANT: Germany and Austria expected a quick victory in the war. They were caught between two powerful enemies: Russia and France. But German military leaders were not worried. They had a battle plan they were sure would succeed.

The German generals planned to strike quickly at France with most of the German army. They expected to defeat France in a short time and then turn to fight Russia. In this way, the German army would not have to fight both enemies at the same time.

loc.gov

A 1915 poster showing a French soldier holding a grenade

HARRY MONROE: At first, the plan worked. Two million German soldiers swept across Belgium and into France. They rushed forward toward Paris, hoping for a fast victory. But the German commanders made a mistake. They pushed their men too fast. When British and French forces struck back -- outside Paris -- the tired and worn German soldiers could not hold their positions.

The battle was fierce and unbelievably bloody. In the end, the Germans were forced to withdraw.

The German withdrawal gave the allies time to prepare strong defenses. There was no chance now for a quick German victory. Instead, it would be a long war, with Germany and Austria facing enemies on two sides. Britain and France were on the West. Russia was on the East.

KAY GALLANT: The Allies took immediate steps to reduce Germany's trade with the rest of the world. The British navy began seizing war supplies found on neutral ships sailing toward German ports. It then expanded its efforts to block food exports to Germany.

The blockade by Britain and the other allies was very successful. Germany faced possible starvation. Its navy was not strong enough to break the blockade with surface ships. Its only hope was to break the blockade with another naval weapon: submarines.

Germany announced that it would use its submarines to sink any ship that came near the coast of Britain. The threat included ships from neutral nations that tried to continue trading with the Allies.

HARRY MONROE: The United States and other neutral nations immediately protested the German announcement. They said it was a clear violation of international law.

loc.gov

A German submarine said to be the one that sank the Lusitania

When a German submarine sank a British ship in the Irish Sea, one of the victims was an American citizen. A few weeks later, an American oil ship was damaged during a sea battle between British navy ships and a German submarine. Then came the most serious incident of all. It involved a British passenger ship called the Lusitania.

The Lusitania was sailing from New York City to Britain when it was attacked by a German submarine. The Lusitania sank in eighteen minutes. One thousand two hundred persons were killed. One hundred twenty-nine were Americans.

KAY GALLANT: The sinking of the Lusitania shocked and horrified the American people. They called it mass murder. They turned against Germany. President Wilson warned that he might declare war on Germany, if Germany continued to sink civilian ships.

Germany did not want war with the United States. It already faced a strong fight against the European Allies. It promised not to sink any more civilian ships without warning. And it offered regrets for the Lusitania incident.

HARRY MONROE: President Wilson accepted Germany's apology. Like most Americans, he hoped to stay out of the bloody European struggle. And he also knew that the record of the Allies was not completely clean.

For example, he was troubled by reports of mass hunger in Germany. He and other Americans felt the British food blockade was cruel. They also were shocked by the way British forces brutally crushed a rebellion in Ireland at the time.

Most of all, the American people were sickened by reports of what was happening on the battlefields of Europe. The armies were using poison gas and other terrible weapons. Soldiers on both sides were dying by the millions. The war had become a bloodbath.

loc.gov

President Woodrow Wilson in 1916

KAY GALLANT: The United States had a presidential election in nineteen sixteen. President Wilson won the nomination of the Democratic Party to seek re-election. Democrats around the country shouted their support with these words: "He kept us out of war!" Wilson himself did not like the words. He felt it raised false hopes. But people continued to say it, because they did not want war.

HARRY MONROE: The Republican Party nominated Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes as its candidate for president. Hughes was a moderate Republican. He supported a number of social reforms.

Like Wilson, Hughes promised to keep the United States neutral. However, one of his supporters was former President Theodore Roosevelt. And Roosevelt called for strong American policies that could lead to war. Roosevelt's words led many Americans to see Wilson as the candidate of peace....and Hughes as the candidate of war.

KAY GALLANT: Voting in the presidential election was very close. At first, it seemed Hughes had won. He went to bed on election night believing he would be America's next president. But voting results later that night confirmed Wilson as the winner. The election was so close the Republicans did not accept defeat for two weeks.

Woodrow Wilson had won another term. During that term, he would find it increasingly difficult to honor the words of the campaign. Finally, he would find it impossible. The United States entered World War One while Woodrow Wilson was president.

That will be our story next week.

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BOB DOUGHTY: Our program was written by Frank Beardsley. The narrators were Harry Monroe and Kay Gallant.

You can find our series online with transcripts, MP3s, podcasts and images at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.

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This is program #15
7 

Donations urgent for Zacharias from Kenia

We have no doubt, when teacher Marzio (from US) and me Carlos Tour Guide watched a documentary about Zacharias, right way we decided to contribute with Zach, donating on the campaign and spreading for friends on Facebook, Twitter and on blogs, and we also encourage friends, partners to join us, it is up to you.

The origin of the expression ok

CREDITS FOR VOA SPECIAL ENGLISH

WORDS AND THEIR STORIES: WHERE DID 'OK' COME FROM?

A look at what may be the most commonly used word in the world.

Millions of people all over the world use the word OK. In fact, some people say the word is used more often than any other word in the world. OK means all right or acceptable. It expresses agreement or approval. You might ask your brother, "Is it okay if I borrow your car?” Or if someone asks you to do something, you might say, “Okay, I will.” Still, language experts do not agree about where the word came from.Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

Some people say it came from the Native American Indian tribe known as the Choctaw. The Choctaw word okeh means the same as the American word okay. Experts say early explorers in the American West spoke the Choctaw language in the nineteenth century. The language spread across the country.

But many people dispute this. Language expert Allen Walker Read wrote about the word OK in reports published in the nineteen sixties. He said the word began being used in the eighteen thirties. It was a short way of writing a different spelling of the words “all correct.” Some foreign-born people wrote “all correct” as “o-l-l k-o-r-r-e-c-t,” and used the letters O.K. Other people say a railroad worker named Obadiah Kelly invented the word long ago. They said he put the first letters of his names -- O and K -- on each object people gave him to send on the train.

Still others say a political organization invented the word. The organization supported Martin Van Buren for president in eighteen forty. They called their group, the O.K. Club. The letters were taken from the name of the town where Martin Van Buren was born — Old Kinderhook, New York.

Not everyone agrees with this explanation, either. But experts do agree that the word is purely American. And it has spread to almost every country on Earth. 

Then there is the expression A-OK. This means everything is fine. A-OK is a space-age expression. It was used in nineteen sixty-one during the flight of astronaut Alan Shepard. He was the first American to be launched into space. His flight ended when his spacecraft landed in the ocean, as planned. Shepard reported: "Everything is A-OK.”

However, some experts say the expression did not begin with the space age. One story says it was first used during the early days of the telephone to tell an operator that a message had been received. 

There are also funny ways to say okay. Some people say okey-dokeyor okey-doke. These expressions were first used in the nineteen thirties. Today, a character on the American television series, “The Simpsons,” says it another way. He says okely-dokely.

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This program was written by Shelley Gollust. I'm Faith Lapidus. You can find more WORDS AND THEIR STORIES at our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com.

Some Query 

Man and Machine part II

Source www.maganews.com.br

If you cannot live without the Internet and spend hours and hours in front of the computer and sometimes even forget to eat, then you had better[21] take care. You could be a “cyberaddict”[3]

The consequences of virtual addiction (Part 2)

Dependency on the Internet can affect our emotional, personal and professional lives. Many specialists say this kind of addiction should be treated as if it were a psychological illness [1]

   The American Journal of Psychiatry says excessive use of the Internet can be thought of [2] as[3] a mental disturbance that should be treated like a psychological illness. In many cases virtual addiction can interfere with a person’s private, emotional and professional life. It may also even cause physical harm [4]. An article on the site brasilescola says there are cases of cyberaddicts having died because they have spent too long in front of the computer. There are certain diseases caused by spending too long in the same position. Deep Vein Thrombosis [5] (which can develop [6] into a Pulmonary Embolism) is one such example.

The Internet offers a lot of temptations

In recent years the Internet has offered us many new options. The main attractions are MSN (instant messaging), Orkut (relationship site), YouTube (with hundreds of thousands of videos for you to watch) and MySpace, where surfers can listen to thousands of songs. And there are also millions of sites to visit and keep up to date [7] on a range [8] of subjects. The Internet can help you solve[9] a lot of problems, but if you get carried [10] away, the Internet stops being a solution and turns into a problem.

Vocabulary

1 illness – doença

2 can be thought of  – pode ser considerado 

3 as – como

4 physical harm – dano físico

5 Deep Vein Thrombosis – Trombose Venal Profunda

6 which can develop into – que pode evoluir para

7 to keep up to date – manter-se atualizado

8 on a range – nos mais diversos

9 to solve – resolver

10 if you get carried away – exp. idiom - se você exagerar

Matéria publicada na edição de número 42 da Revista Maganews

Ilustração - Calberto

Cricket

Language Level: Intermediate

Standard Accent: American

Source: Speak Up

Not Cricket

Traditionally British, Cricket has the best players outside Britain, in its ex-colonies, that, beyond the language, they learnt moreover like for Sport.

To the outside world cricket is a quintessentially English – and gentlemanly – game. Indeed the expression “It’s not cricket” is used when somebody either tries to bend the rules or to behave unfairly.

As if the case with soccer and rugby, cricket was invented by the English. They exported it to other countries, whose teams now regularly beat them. Cricket is largely limited to former British Colonies such as Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa and the West Indies.

Cricket’s gentlemanly image was, however, badly shaken during the recent World Cup, which was held in the West Indies. Pakistan surprisingly lost to a weaker team, Ireland, and the following morning, Pakistan’s coach, a former English player called Bob Woolmer, was found dead in his hotel room. At first it was thought the he might have dead a heart attack, or that he could have committed suicide. The history became international headline news a few days later, when it was announced that he had in fact been murdered. Doubts, then, were whether Woolmer had been killed by irate fans, or by members of an illegal betting syndicate, who may have had a hand in the Pakistan-Ireland match’s shock result. It would not have been the first time that cricket had been rocked by a betting scandal. But on June 12, almost three months after the death and after both the concurrence of Scotland Yard detectives and probes by a UK Home Office pathologist Kingston police gave in and announced that Woolmer had actually died of “natural causes”. This declaration invalidated the initial report by a local pathologist. Woolmer indeed had chronic illnesses, including diabetes and a heart problem. So, in the end, the only thing certain is that cricket’s fame goes on and on.

A SENSE OF UNITY

Nand Kumar, an Indian who runs a fashion export business, says that cricket has become very popular in India since 1983, when the country won the World Cup, and that today it is “like a religion”, being far more popular than any other sport. Nor do the Indians, whose booming economy, along with that of China, is set to dominate the World of tomorrow, have any problems with cricket’s colonial past.

Nand Kumar (India Accent)

They’re actually very grateful because if two things which unite the whole of India is…one is the English language, and one is the cricket. These are the two things which just unite the complete country. There are so many differences in different parts of region, languages and culture and the food and the lifestyle and the way you live and the way you talk, everything is different, but two things which just unite the entire country, is the English language, which everyone now is learning, everyone learns there, and they use for work, and they cricket, as a sport.  

Voyager: The First Airplane to Fly Around the World Non-Stop

Source: www.voanews.com

Photo: nasm.si.edu

Voyager is now kept at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH:  EXPLORATIONS -- a program in Special English by the Voice of America.

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It was called the last great goal in flying.  It would be a flight around the world without stopping or adding more fuel.  Today, Frank Oliver and Doug Johnson tell about a special plane called Voyager and the effort to set a difficult world record.

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FRANK OLIVER:  Voyager began as a quick drawing on a small piece of paper.  Six years later, the drawing was a plane that made history.

Many people gave their time, energy and money to help make the flight happen.  But three people had lead parts in the event.  Dick Rutan.  Burt Rutan.  And Jeana Yeager.

Dick Rutan was an experienced flier.  He had been a pilot in the United States military during the war in Vietnam.  After the war, he worked as a test pilot.  He flew planes designed by his younger brother Burt.

Burt Rutan was well-known as a designer of experimental planes.  And Jeana Yeager held nine world flight records as a pilot.

DOUG JOHNSON:  One day in early nineteen eighty-one, Dick, Burt and Jeana were eating in a restaurant in Mojave, California.  Burt turned to his brother and asked a wild question:  "How would you like to be the first person to fly around the world without stopping to re-fuel?"

The three considered the idea.  A non-stop flight around the world without re-fueling was the last flight record to be set.  The flight always had been considered impossible.  No plane could carry enough fuel to fly that far:  forty thousand kilometers.

But now there were new materials for planes.  Burt thought he could build a plane that could make the voyage.  Dick and Jeana thought they could fly it.  No one could think of a good reason not to try.

Burt picked up a small piece of paper.  He drew an airplane that looked like a giant wing, and not much more.  That was the beginning.

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FRANK OLIVER:  Not since the days of Orville and Wilbur Wright had the people making a record flight designed and built their own aircraft.  Dick, Burt and Jeana did.  Some people thought their Voyager project was both impossible and foolish.  Everyone knew it would be dangerous.

The Voyager crew worked on the plane in a small building at an airport in California's Mojave Desert.  Dick, Burt and Jeana received no government money.  Instead, they got small amounts of money from lots of different people.

As news of the project spread, more and more people offered to help.  There were aviation engineers and workers from the space agency's experimental plane project.  Several airplane companies offered equipment to be used in the plane.  When Voyager was finished, it had two million dollars' worth of parts in it.

DOUG JOHNSON:  Burt Rutan had built light-weight planes before.  He knew a normal plane made of aluminum metal could not make a trip around the world without adding fuel.  So his solution was to build Voyager almost completely out of new materials.  The materials were very light, but very strong.  This meant Voyager could lift and carry many times its weight in fuel.

The finished plane weighed just nine hundred kilograms, about the weight of a small car.  The full load of fuel weighed three times that much, about three thousand kilograms.  Voyager was not built to be a fast plane.  It flew about one hundred seventy-five kilometers an hour.

FRANK OLIVER:  The main wing of the finished plane was more than thirty-three meters across.  That is wider than the main wing on today's big passenger planes.  The center part of the plane held the crew.  And on either side of this body were two long fuel tanks.

In fact, almost all of the Voyager was a fuel tank.  Seventeen separate containers were squeezed into every possible space.  During the flight, the pilots had to move fuel from container to container to keep the plane balanced.  One engine at each end of the body of the plane provided power.

The area for the two pilots was unbelievably small.  It was just one meter wide by two-and-one-quarter meters long.  The person flying the plane sat in the pilot's seat.  The other person had to lie down at all times.

DOUG JOHNSON:  After many test flights, the Voyager was finally ready in December, nineteen eighty-six.  The best weather for flying around the world is from June to August.  That time was far past.  But the pilots were tired of delays.  They made the decision to Take off, knowing the weather might be bad.

nasm.si.edu

Jeana Yeager and Dick Rutan

On December fourteenth, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager walked around the plane one more time.  It looked like a giant white flying insect.  They were going to be trusting their lives to this strange plane for the next nine days.

Dick climbed into the only seat.  Jeana lay on the floor.  They were ready to go.  Flight controllers at Edwards Air Force Base in California cleared them for a trip no one had ever attempted before.

FRANK OLIVER:  The long, thin wings of the plane were so loaded with fuel that they almost touched the ground.  Voyager began to move down the runway, slowly.  But something was wrong.  The ends of the wings were not lifting.

Burt Rutan sent a radio message to his brother to lift the plane's nose.  "Pull back on the stick!" he screamed.  "Pull back!"  But Dick did not hear the warning.  And he did not see the wings.  He was looking straight ahead.

Voyager was getting dangerously close to the end of the runway.  It appeared about to crash.  Finally, just in time, the long wings swept up.  The plane leaped into the air.

Planes following Voyager could see that the ends of the wings were badly damaged.  Dick turned the plane so the force of air currents would break off the broken ends.  Then he aimed Voyager out over the Pacific Ocean.

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DOUG JOHNSON:  Weight was the main consideration in designing the experimental plane.  Not safety.  Not comfort.  Voyager did not have most of the normal safety equipment of modern planes.  There were no special materials to block the noise of the engines.  And space for the pilots was so tight they had great difficulty changing places.

Voyager's long wings moved up and down as the winds changed.  It seemed to sail on waves of air, just like a sailboat on ocean waves.  This motion meant the flight was extremely rough.

FRANK OLIVER:  It was not an enjoyable trip.  Dick and Jeana were always tense.  At the end of the second day, the weather expert for the flight warned of trouble.  Voyager was heading for an ocean storm.  Dick was able to fly close to the storm and ride its winds.

On the third day, Voyager was in trouble again.  It had to fly between huge thunderhead clouds on one side and Vietnam's airspace on the other.  Dick was able to keep the plane safely in the middle.

nasa.gov

Voyager in flight

Over Africa, the two pilots struggled with continuous stormy weather.  Dick had flown almost all of the first sixty hours of the flight.  Then he changed places with Jeana for short periods.  Both were extremely tired.

Suddenly, a red warning light turned on.  It was a signal that there was not enough oil in one engine.  Dick and Jeana had been so busy trying to fly around bad weather and mountains that they had forgotten to watch the oil level.  But luck stayed with them.

They added the necessary oil.  The engine was not damaged.

DOUG JOHNSON:  Once past the violent weather over Africa, Dick and Jeana began planning the way home.  A computer confirmed that they had enough fuel left to make it.  But as they flew up the coast of Mexico, the engine on the back of the plane failed.  Fuel had stopped flowing to it.

The more powerful front engine already had been shut down earlier to save fuel.  With neither engine working, Voyager quickly began to lose speed and height.  The plane fell for five minutes.  Dick finally got the front engine started again.  Then fuel started flowing to the back engine, and it began to work again, too.

FRANK OLIVER:  Nine days after take-off, Voyager landed smoothly at Edwards Air Force Base in California.  It had completed a Forty thousand kilometer flight around the world.  It had not stopped.  And it had not re-fueled.

Dick said after landing:  "This was the last major event of atmospheric flight."  Jeana added:  "It was a lot more difficult than we ever imagined."

Burt Rutan's revolutionary plane design had worked.  And, with it, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager had joined the list of the world's greatest fliers.

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SHIRLEY GRIFFITH:  This Special English program was written by Marilyn Rice Christiano.  Your narrators were Frank Oliver and Doug Johnson.  I'm Shirley Griffith.  Listen again next week for another EXPLORATIONS program on the Voice of America

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