Around the World in 80 Days 5/6

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdY4-4X-uKk

The Wright Brothers: They Showed the World How to Fly

Source of the picture: http://turtledove.wikia.com

Source: Welcome to Voice of America Special English

www.manythings.org/voa/people 

 PEOPLE IN AMERICA from VOA Special English.  Today, Sarah Long and Rich Kleinfeldt tell the story of Wilbur and Orville Wright.  The Wright brothers made a small engine-powered flying machine and proved that it was possible for humans to really fly.

(MUSIC)

Wilbur Wright was born in eighteen sixty-seven near Melville,  Indiana.  His brother Orville was born four years later in Dayton, Ohio.  Throughout their lives, they were best friends.  As Wilbur once said: "From the time we were little children, Orville and I lived together, played together, worked together and thought together."

Wilbur and Orville's father was a bishop, an official of the United Brethren Church.  He traveled a lot on church business.  Their mother was unusual for a woman of the nineteenth century.  She had completed college.  She was especially good at mathematics and science.  And she was good at using tools to fix things or make things.

One winter day when the Wright brothers were young, all their  friends were outside sliding down a hill on wooden sleds.  The Wright brothers were sad, because they did not have a sled.  So, Mrs. Wright said she would make one for them.  She drew a picture of a sled.  It did not look like other sleds.  It was lower to the ground and not as wide.  She told the boys it would be faster, because there would be less resistance from the wind when they rode on it.  Mrs. Wright was correct.  When the sled was finished, it was the fastest one around.  Wilbur and Orville felt like they were flying.

The sled project taught the Wright brothers two important rules.  They learned they could increase speed by reducing wind resistance.  And they learned the importance of drawing a design.  Mrs. Wright said: "If you draw it correctly on paper, it will be right when you build it."

 VOICE ONE:

When Wilbur was eleven years old and Orville seven, Bishop Wright  brought home a gift for them.  It was a small flying machine that  flew like helicopters of today.  It was made of paper, bamboo and  cork.

The motor was a rubber band that had to be turned many times until it was tight.  When the person holding the toy helicopter let go, it rose straight up.  It stayed in the air for a few seconds.  Then it floated down to the floor.

Wilbur and Orville played and played with their new toy.  Finally, the paper tore and the rubber band broke.  They made another one.  But it was too heavy to fly.  Their first flying machine failed.

Their attempts to make the toy gave them a new idea.  They would  make kites to fly and sell to their friends.  They made many designs and tested them.  Finally, they had the right design.  The kites flew as though they had wings.

The Wright brothers continued to experiment with mechanical  things.  Orville started a printing business when he was in high  school.  He used a small printing machine to publish a newspaper.  He sold copies of the newspaper to the other children in school, but he did not earn much money from the project.

Wilbur offered some advice to his younger brother.  Make the  printing press bigger and publish a bigger newspaper, he said.  So, together, they designed and built one.  The machine looked strange.  Yet it worked perfectly.  Soon, Orville and Wilbur were publishing a weekly newspaper.

They also printed materials for local businessmen.  They were finally earning money.  Wilbur was twenty-five years old and Orville twenty-one when they began to sell and repair bicycles.  Then they began to make them.  But the Wright brothers never stopped thinking about flying machines.

 VOICE TWO:

In eighteen ninety-nine, Wilbur decided to learn about all the  different kinds of flying machines that had been designed and tested through the years.  Wilbur wrote to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.  He asked for all the information it had on flying.

The Wright brothers read everything they could about people who  sailed through the air under huge balloons.  They also read about  people who tried to fly on gliders -- planes with wings, but no  motors.

Then the Wright brothers began to design their own flying machine.  They used the ideas they had developed from their earlier experiments with the toy helicopter, kites, printing machine and bicycles.

Soon, they needed a place to test their ideas about flight.  They  wrote to the Weather Bureau in Washington to find the place with  the best wind conditions.  The best place seemed to be a thin piece of sandy land in North Carolina along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.  It was called Kill Devil Hill, near the town of Kitty Hawk.  It had the right wind and open space.  Best of all, it was private.

In nineteen hundred, the Wright brothers tested a glider that could carry a person.  But neither the first or second glider they built had the lifting power needed for real flight.  Wilbur and Orville decided that what they had read about air pressure on curved surfaces was wrong.  So they built a wind tunnel two meters long in their bicycle store in Dayton, Ohio.  They tested more than two hundred designs of wings.  These tests gave them the correct information about air pressure on curved surfaces.  Now it was possible for them to design a machine that could fly.

The Wright brothers built a third glider.  They took it to Kitty Hawk in the summer of nineteen-oh-two.  They made almost one thousand flights with the glider.  Some covered more than one hundred eighty meters.  This glider proved that they had solved most of the problems of balance in flight.  By the autumn of nineteen-oh-three, Wilbur and Orville had designed and built an airplane powered by a gasoline engine.  The plane had wings twelve meters across.  It weighed about  three hundred forty kilograms, including the pilot.

The Wright brothers returned to Kitty Hawk.  On December  seventeen, nineteen-oh-three, they made the world's first flight  in a machine that was heavier than air and powered by an engine.  Orville flew the plane thirty-seven meters.  He was in the air for twelve seconds.  The two brothers made three more flights that day.  The longest was made by Wilbur.  He flew two hundred sixty meters in fifty-nine seconds.  Four other men watched the Wright brothers' first flights.  One of the men took pictures.  Few newspapers, however, noted the event.

Wilbur and Orville returned home to Ohio.  They built more powerful engines and flew better airplanes.  But their success was almost unknown.  Most people still did not believe flying was possible.  It was almost five years before the Wright brothers became famous.  In nineteen-oh-eight, Wilbur went to France.  He gave demonstration flights at heights of ninety meters.  A French company agreed to begin making the Wright brothers' flying machine.

Orville made successful flights in the United States at the time Wilbur was in France.  One lasted an hour.  Orville also made fifty-seven complete circles over a field at Fort Myer, Virginia.  The United States War Department agreed to buy a Wright brothers' plane.  Wilbur and Orville suddenly became world heroes.  Newspapers wrote long stories about them.  Crowds followed them.  But they were not seeking fame.  They returned to Dayton where they continued to improve their airplanes.  They taught many others how to fly.

Wilbur Wright died of typhoid fever in nineteen twelve.  Orville  Wright continued designing and inventing until he died many years  later, in nineteen forty-eight.

Today, the Wright brothers' first airplane is in the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.  Visitors to the museum look at the Wright brothers' small plane with its cloth wings, wooden controls and tiny engine.  Then they see space vehicles and a rock collected from the moon.  This is striking evidence of the changes in the world since Wilbur and Orville Wright began the modern age of flight, one hundred years ago.

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This program was written by Marilyn Rice Christiano and produced by Paul Thompson.  Your announcers were Sarah Long and Rich Kleinfeldt.  I'm Faith Lapidus.  Join us again next week for PEOPLE IN AMERICA from VOA Special English.

Larry Hagman...Where are they now?

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Image's source:  www.lifestreamsdb.blogspot.com

Source: www.speakup.com

Language level: Pre-intermediate

Standard accent: American

Speaker: Chuck Rolando

LARRY HAGMAN

Thirty years ago everybody asked the same question: “Who shot J.R.? J.R was J.R Erwing, the star  of theTV series Dallas. JR. was a corrupt Texas oilman. He was cruel in business and he was cruel in his private life. He had many enemies. The show’s second season ended on March 21^st, 1980. In the last episode a mystery figure entered his office and shot him. The next season began in November. Viewers awaited eight months for the answer to the question “Who Shot J.R?” 83 million Americans watched the first episode of the new season. It was also an international sensation. The Turkish parliament interrupted a session: this was so that M.P.s could go home and watch Dallas!

SOLAR POWER

Larry Hagman is the actor who played J.R. His performance was brilliant: he was the man “everyone loved to hate.” In reality Larry Hagman is very different from J.R. JR, was a Texas oilman. He probably liked another Texas oilman, George W. Bush, but Larry Hagman is left-wing and he hates Bush! And Hagman doesn’t like oil: today he campaigns for solar energy.

CAREER

Larry Hagman was born on September 21^st, 1931. His childhood was difficult. His mother, Mary Martin, was a famous actress. She divorced her husband when Larry was five. Larry went to live with his grandmother. As a teenager he developed a drink problem. When he left school he decided to become an actor but he joined the United States Air force during the Korean War. He left the Air Force in 1956 and worked as a TV actor. He became a star in the 1960s, thanks to the success of the series I Dream of Jeannie. The show was about a female genie: Hagman played her master. And Dallas made Hagman a superstar. The show ran from 1978 to 1991. Hagman appeared in all 357 episodes.

THE ANSWERS…

Today Larry Hagman is 79. He is a member of the environmental group Solar World. He and his wife live in an enormous house in the California Mountains. It is completely solar-powered. In the past the Hagman’s annual energy bill was $37.000. Today is $13.

One last question. Who shot J.R? It was his sister-in-law, Kristin. And that’s not all: Dallas will return to television. There will be a sequel about J.R’s children. Larry Hagman will probably appear.

DISARMING BRITAIN

Source: www.speakup.com.br

KNIFE CRIME

DISARMING BRITAIN

      Since 2004 Britain has witnessed art increase in violent crime involving Young people. And there has been a particular rise in the number of victims killed by knives.

      This phenomenon has caught the attention of both the media an the authorities. In 2006 the London Metropolitan Police launched “Operation Blunt” as part of a long term strategy to tackle knife crime. Much of the works is preventive: examples include advertising campaigns, better patrolling by the procedures and metal detectors.

      Local London boroughs are also working with schools. Kensington and Chelsea, for example, launched “Operation Sabre.” Children were invited to design a poster to be used on bus routes. The operation also included six “knife surrender him. “which were placed at locations throughout the borough. As a result, 139 knives were collected. Most were kitchen knives, but there was an assortment of more lethal weapons, including a machete.

      A BIG MISTAKE

      According to a survey conducted in 2004, most young people carry knives thinking that they can use them for protection. Yet research has shown that it is more likely that an assailant will seize your knife and use it against you.

      Much of the campaigning against knife crime is led by people who have lost friends or family member. Londoner Alexander Rose is a case in point. He was still a teenager in 2006 when a 16-year-old friend was stabled to death. He launched a campaign called “STOP” (“Solve This Ongoing Problem”) which is supported by Battlefront.co.uk, an online network run by Channel 4.

      As part of the campaign to educate people about the danger of carrying blades, hundreds of knives seized by police were melted down and forged into pendants engraved with the words “This used to be a knife.”

      2006 was also the year that Ann Oakes Odger decided to found the charity Knife Crime.Org (www.knifecrime.org). This was after her 27-year-old son Westley had been stabbed to death, following an argument at a cash machine in colchester. Ann started a campaign to change the law. And it has worked: the sentence for adults who murder someone with a knife has been raised from 15 to 25 years.

      THE ART OF EDUCATION

      And some of the campaigns have been set up by the victims of knife crime. Oliver Hemsley, for example, is a 21-year-old art student who is now in a wheelchair after an unprovoked attack. Oliver decided to live and launched a social initiative called Art Against Knives. This London-based charity works on the roots of the problem by offering young people a creative alternative to violent gang culture. For more, visit www.artaginstknives.com .

Dancing Queen

A song can teach much, listen to music could provide a self-studying and improve your English.

Source:  http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=5186

Author: ESL Teacher Irina from Lativia

You cancouldmust dance, you can jive, enjoyinghavingspending the time of your life
See that girlladychild, watch that scene, dig in the dancing queen

SaturdaySundayFriday night and the lights are low
Looking out for the place to gobeenjoy
Where they play the right gamestunesmusic, getting in the swing
You come in to look for a boykingman
Anybody could be that guyboyman
Night is darkyoungwarm and the music’s nicefinehigh
With a bit of rock music, everythingeverybodyall is fine
You’re in the mood for a chancedancefun
And when you seehaveget the chance...

You are the dancing girlqueenwonder, young and sweet, only seventeen
Dancing girlqueenwonder, feel the beat offromby the tambourine
You cancouldmust dance, you can jive, enjoyinghavingspending the time of your life
See that girlladychild, watch that scene, dig in the dancing girlqueenwonder

You’re a teaserteacherwoman, you turn ’em on
Leave them burning and then you’re goneawayalone
WaitingLookingSearching out for another, anyone will do
You’re in the mood for a chancedancefun
And when you seehaveget the chance...

You are the dancing girlqueenwonder, young and sweet, only seventeen
Dancing girlqueenwonder, feel the beat offromby the tambourine
You cancouldmust dance, you can jive, enjoyinghavingspending the time of your life
See that girlladychild, watch that scene, dig in the dancing girlqueenwonder

Around the World in 80 Days Chapter 4/6

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifwlSOesXJY

For Fans of Edgar Allan Poe, a Happy 200th Birthday

Source: Voice of America Special English
www.manythings.org/voa/people 


Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember. And I'm Shirley Griffith. This year is the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of writer Edgar Allan Poe. The United States Postal Service is honoring him with a stamp. And several museums in cities where he lived are remembering him with plays, readings and other events. This week on our program we explore his life and the continuing influence of his work.

(MUSIC)

Edgar Allan Poe wrote stories and poems of mystery and terror, insanity and death. His life was short and seemingly unhappy.

He was born Edgar Poe on January nineteenth, eighteen hundred and nine in Boston, Massachusetts. His parents were actors. He was a baby when his father left the family. And he was two when his mother died. At that time they were in Richmond, Virginia.

Edgar went to live with the family of a wealthy Richmond businessman named John Allan. John Allan never officially adopted him as a son, but the boy became known as Edgar Allan Poe.

He attended schools in England and in Richmond. He also attended the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He was a good student. But he had a problem with alcohol. Even one drink seemed to change his personality and make him drunk. Also, he liked to play card games for money. Edgar was not a good player. He lost money that he did not have.

John Allan refused to pay Edgar's gambling losses. He also refused to continue paying for his education. So the young man went to Boston and began working as a writer and editor for monthly magazines.

Poe served in the Army for two years, before entering the United States Military Academy at West Point to become an officer. He was dismissed from the academy in eighteen thirty-one after six months. By then he had already published three books of poetry.

He began writing stories while living with his aunt in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. In October of eighteen thirty-three, he won a short story contest organized by a local newspaper. He received fifty dollars in prize money and got a job editing the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. He published many of his own stories.

In eighteen thirty-four, Poe married his cousin Virginia Clemm, the thirteen year old daughter of his father's sister. They moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in eighteen thirty-eight. There, Poe served as editor of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine and continued to write.

He published many of his most frightening stories during this time. These included "The Black Cat," "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Pit and the Pendulum."

Edgar Allan Poe did something unusual for writers of his time: he used a narrator in a story to describe what was happening. A good example is the short story "The Tell-Tale Heart."

The narrator claims that he is not mad, yet reveals that he is a murderer. He has killed an old man for no apparent reason. He cuts up the body and hides the parts under the floorboards of the victim's house.

Police officers arrive after getting reports of noises from the house. The murderer shows them around the house and is proud of the way he has hidden all the evidence. But he begins to hear a sound. The others in the room cannot hear it.

READER:

Yet the sound increased -- and what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound -- much a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath -- and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly -- more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men -- but the noise steadily increased. Oh God what could I do? I foamed -- I raved --I swore. But the noise continually increased. It grew louder -- louder -- louder!

Edgar Allan Poe is also remembered for the kind of literature known as detective fiction. These are stories of an investigator who has to solve murders and other crimes.

In fact, Edgar Allan Poe is considered the father of the modern detective novel. His fictional detective C. August Dupin first appeared in his story "The Murders In the Rue Morgue" in eighteen forty-one. Dupin also appeared in two later stories, "The Mystery of Marie Roget" and "The Purloined Letter."

Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, wrote about Poe's influence on other crime writers: "Each may find some little development of his own, but his main art must trace back to those admirable stories of Monsieur Dupin, so wonderful in their masterful force, their reticence, their quick dramatic point."

Jeff Jerome is the curator of the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum in Baltimore. He says Poe's influence can also be seen in the work of H.G. Wells and Alfred Hitchcock, to name a few. Poe's influence extends to plays, movies, operas, music, cartoons, television, paintings -- just about every kind of art.

Poe's creation of the detective novel is recognized by the Mystery Writers of America. The writers group presents the yearly Edgar Awards to honor the best detective and suspense books, movies and TV shows.

An award also goes to an individual, organization or business for working to continue the influence of Edgar Allan Poe. The award is named for Poe's most famous work. This year, the Edgar Allan Poe Society and the Poe House in Baltimore will receive the Raven Award.

Edgar Allan Poe became famous after "The Raven" was published in eighteen forty-five. The poetry is rich in atmosphere. The rhythm suggests music.

The narrator of "The Raven" is a man whose love has died. He sits alone among his books late at night. He hears a noise at the window:

READER:

Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,

And the only word there spoken was the whispered word "Lenore!"

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"

Merely this, and nothing more."

The man finds a large black bird and asks it questions. The raven answers with a single word: "Nevermore." At the end of the poem, the man has quite clearly gone mad from grief:

READER:

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted -- nevermore!

The sadness and horror in Poe's writing might lead readers to suspect a disordered mind. Yet people who knew him reported him to be a nice man. Some even called him a real gentleman.

His wife died in eighteen forty-seven. Virginia Clemm Poe had suffered from tuberculosis for many years. At the same time, Poe's magazine failed, and so did his health. He died on October seventh, eighteen forty-nine, under mysterious conditions.

He was found in a tavern in Baltimore. He did not know where he was or how he got there. He was dressed in rags. He died four days later in a hospital. He was forty years old.

Over the years, historians and medical experts have tried to explain the cause of Poe's death. Some say he killed himself with drink. Others say he developed rabies from an animal bite. Many in Baltimore believe he was beaten by local criminal gangs.

Every year about two thousand people visit Edgar Allan Poe's grave at the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground in Baltimore. And every year on January nineteenth -- Poe's birthday -- people watch for a man dressed in black to appear. His face is covered. He places a bottle of French cognac and three roses on the grave.

No one in Baltimore really wants to know the visitor's identity. They prefer that it remain a mystery, much like Edgar Allan Poe himself.

Our program was written by Nancy Steinbach and produced by Caty Weaver. I'm Steve Ember. And I'm Shirley Griffith. Doug Johnson was our reader. To hear the short story "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe, listen at this time Saturday for the program AMERICAN STORIES. And join us again next week forTHIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English