Storm Busters (A2), SPEAK UP IN CLASS

STORM BUSTERS TORNADO

Source: www.speakup.com.br

Language level: Pre-intermediate

Standard accent: American

Speaker: Chuck Rolando

STORM BUSTERS

It’s storm-chasing season in Tornado Alley, USA. Tour companies offer courageous, and possibly insane, tourists the chance to see a tornado from a distance of only 300 metres. The season runs from May 1^st to June 30^th.

DANGEROUS TERRITORY

Tornado Alley is famous for its thunderstorms and tornadoes. It’s located between the Rocky and the Appalachian mountain ranges hundreds of miles of flat, open plains. It runs through Northern Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado. The buildings in this region have reinforced roofs, solid foundations and storm cellars. Local people rely on storm warnings to avoid disaster.

ADRENALINE!

Tornadoes are very dangerous so why do people want to chase them? Documentary-maker Sean Casey says. “It’s addictive.” His driver Byron Turk agrees. It’s the adrenaline…the ultimate challenge! Casey built a Tornado intercept Vehicle. It weights 680 kilos and has steel-plated armour, its windows are 4 centimetres thick. Casey and his team filmed as a tornado hit the vehicle. You can see his documentaries on the Discovery Channel.

A BIG RISK

Are you still interested in storm-chasing? Well, it’s very important to find expert guides. A company like “Storm Chasing Adventure Tours” (SCAT) can guarantee tourists safety. They have years of experience, and understand how storms develop. They use advanced computer systems to predict the location of the storms. SCAT chief Todd Thorn says, however. “Guides cannot rely only on the technology. . they must have the ability to read the sky.” The SCAT team aren’t simply tourist guides. They also provide important information to National Weather Centres on the position and strength of storms. They help save lives.

UNBELIEVABLE

Storms usually occur in the late afternoon, early evening. Teams must drive hundreds of miles to arrive at storm locations. So they leave their base in Amarillo. Texas in the morning. The chase often continues until late in the evening. What is it like to chase a storm? SCAT driver Ravin Harned says. “It’s one thing to see a tornado on TV. But totally different to see it with you won eyes!

STORM BUSTERS

It’s storm-chasing season in Tornado Alley, USA. Tour companies offer courageous, and possibly insane, tourists the chance to see a tornado from a distance of only 300 metres. The season runs from May 1^st to June 30^th.

DANGEROUS TERRITORY

Tornado Alley is famous for its thunderstorms and tornadoes. It’s located between the Rocky and the Appalachian mountain ranges hundreds of miles of flat, open plains. It runs through Northern Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado. The buildings in this region have reinforced roofs, solid foundations and storm cellars. Local people rely on storm warnings to avoid disaster.

ADRENALINE!

Tornadoes are very dangerous so why do people want to chase them? Documentary-maker Sean Casey says. “It’s addictive.” His driver Byron Turk agrees. It’s the adrenaline…the ultimate challenge! Casey built a Tornado intercept Vehicle. It weights 680 kilos and has steel-plated armour, its windows are 4 centimetres thick. Casey and his team filmed as a tornado hit the vehicle. You can see his documentaries on the Discovery Channel.

A BIG RISK

Are you still interested in storm-chasing? Well, it’s very important to find expert guides. A company like “Storm Chasing Adventure Tours” (SCAT) can guarantee tourists safety. They have years of experience, and understand how storms develop. They use advanced computer systems to predict the location of the storms. SCAT chief Todd Thorn says, however. “Guides cannot rely only on the technology. . they must have the ability to read the sky.” The SCAT team aren’t simply tourist guides. They also provide important information to National Weather Centres on the position and strength of storms. They help save lives.

UNBELIEVABLE

Storms usually occur in the late afternoon, early evening. Teams must drive hundreds of miles to arrive at storm locations. So they leave their base in Amarillo. Texas in the morning. The chase often continues until late in the evening. What is it like to chase a storm? SCAT driver Ravin Harned says. “It’s one thing to see a tornado on TV. But totally different to see it with you won eyes!

Source: www.speakup.com.br

Language level: Pre-intermediate

Speaker: Chuck Rolando

Standard accent: American

STORM BUSTERS

It’s storm-chasing season in Tornado Alley, USA. Tour companies offer courageous, and possibly insane, tourists the chance to see a tornado from a distance of only 300 metres. The season runs from May 1^st to June 30^th.

DANGEROUS TERRITORY

Tornado Alley is famous for its thunderstorms and tornadoes. It’s located between the Rocky and the Appalachian mountain ranges hundreds of miles of flat, open plains. It runs through Northern Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado. The buildings in this region have reinforced roofs, solid foundations and storm cellars. Local people rely on storm warnings to avoid disaster.

ADRENALINE!

Tornadoes are very dangerous so why do people want to chase them? Documentary-maker Sean Casey says. “It’s addictive.” His driver Byron Turk agrees. It’s the adrenaline…the ultimate challenge! Casey built a Tornado intercept Vehicle. It weights 680 kilos and has steel-plated armour, its windows are 4 centimetres thick. Casey and his team filmed as a tornado hit the vehicle. You can see his documentaries on the Discovery Channel.

A BIG RISK

Are you still interested in storm-chasing? Well, it’s very important to find expert guides. A company like “Storm Chasing Adventure Tours” (SCAT) can guarantee tourists safety. They have years of experience, and understand how storms develop. They use advanced computer systems to predict the location of the storms. SCAT chief Todd Thorn says, however. “Guides cannot rely only on the technology. . they must have the ability to read the sky.” The SCAT team aren’t simply tourist guides. They also provide important information to National Weather Centres on the position and strength of storms. They help save lives.

UNBELIEVABLE

Storms usually occur in the late afternoon, early evening. Teams must drive hundreds of miles to arrive at storm locations. So they leave their base in Amarillo. Texas in the morning. The chase often continues until late in the evening. What is it like to chase a storm? SCAT driver Ravin Harned says. “It’s one thing to see a tornado on TV. But totally different to see it with you won eyes!

Recently I posted an article from Speak Up it's about Tornadoes, check it out the podcasts and answer questions bellow

Storm Busters  (A2)

 

A - Before you start

Answer the questions with a partner.

1. What do you know about tornadoes?

2. Have you ever seen one?

3. Do they ever happen in your country?

B - Listen and answer

Read these statements. Then listen (without reading) and write T (True) or F (False).

1. Tornadoes are a tourist attraction in Tornado Alley.

2. The storm-chasing season lasts for three months.

3. Tornado Alley runs through several States of the USA.

4. A tornado hit Sean Casey’s vehicle while he was filming.

5. Storms usually happen late at night.

C - Read and answer

Read the article and answer the questions with a partner.

1. How near can tourists get to a tornado?

2. What kind of country is Tornado Alley?

3. What protection do the inhabitants of this area have from tornadoes?

4. What makes Sean Casey’s vehicle so strong?

5. How do expert storm chasers predict the location of storms and tornadoes?

6. In what way do members of the SCAT team help to save lives?

D - Learn it! Use it!

Complete these sentences with words from the glossary. (You may have to adapt the expression in some way; e.g. change from singular to plural.)

1. If you read a lot of articles in English, your knowledge of English vocabulary will ________.

2. The highest mountain ________ in the world is the Himalayas.

3. Another word for “crazy” is _________.

4. Jane is very helpful. You can ________ on her if you need a hand.

5. Don’t take too many of those tablets. Some doctors say they’re _________ .

6. That suitcase looks heavy. How much does it _________?

7. Look at those dark clouds. We’re going to have a __________ .

E – Ready for KET? (Paper 1, Part 5)

Choose the best word for each space.

Storm chasers are people ¹ ________ (what/which/who) drive around in special vehicles and follow storms and tornadoes ² _________ (for/to/so) photograph or study them. They use computer systems to predict where the storms will be. They also rely ³ ________ (at/on/to) their experience of how storms develop. Sometimes they ⁴ ________ (have/must/will) to drive hundreds of miles across the flat open plains of Tornado Alley before arriving ⁵ ________ (to/by/at) the location of a storm.

            Many people wonder ⁶ ________ (how/which/what) it’s like to chase a storm. Storm chaser Kevin Harned says: “It’s ⁷ ________ (a/one/another) thing to see a tornado on TV, but totally different to see it with your own eyes.” However, anybody who is interested ⁸ _______ (in/about/to) trying it should find expert guides to accompany them.

F – Check your pronunciation

One of the four words in each group has a different vowel sound. Which one?

1. form              warn  storm  work

2. chase  range  chance  weigh

3. built  guide  mile  drive

4. tour  through  use  roof

G - Talk about it

Discuss these questions in pairs or groups.

1. Are you afraid of thunderstorms?

2. What shouldn’t you do if you’re outside during a thunderstorm?

3. Do you believe the SCAT team can really “guarantee” the safety of tourists?

4. Would you go on a storm-chasing tour? Why (not)?

H – Write about it

Write about the worst thunderstorm you have ever experienced.

- Where/When was is it?

- What were you doing at the time?

- Did it cause any damage?

- How did you react?

Love Story

Source: http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=3033
Author of this exercise: Everybody here

Andy Williams

Where do I  to tell the story

Of how  a love can be

The love story that is than the sea

The simple about the love she to me

Where do I start

With her first 

She new meaning to this world of mine

There'll be another another time

She came into my and made the fine

She fills my heart

She fills my heart with very things

With songs, with wild imaginings

She fills my with so much love

That anywhere I go I'm never lonely

With her alone who could be lonely

I reach for her hand

It always there

How long does it 

Can love be by the hours in the day

I have no answers now

But this much I can say

I know I'll her until the stars all burn away

And she'll be there

How long does it 

Can love be by the hours in the day

I have no answers now

But this much I can say

I know I'll her until the stars all burn away

And she'll be there

Charlton Heston, 1923-2008: An Actor Famous for Playing Heroic Roles

Source: Voice of America Special English

www.manythings.org/voa/people

I'm Shirley Griffith. And I'm Barbara Klein with PEOPLE IN AMERICAin VOA Special English. Today we tell about actor Charlton Heston. He is best known for playing powerful and heroic leaders in movies such as "The Ten Commandments" and "Ben-Hur." Heston had a strong face and body that could express great physical and emotional force.

Heston made about one hundred movies during his sixty-year career.  He was also known for his social and political activism.

(MUSIC)

Charlton Heston was born John Carter in nineteen twenty-three in Evanston, Illinois. He spent his early childhood in Saint Helen, Michigan. His parents ended their marriage when he was a boy. Later, he decided to change his name. He took the last name of his mother's second husband, Heston. And, for his first name he used his mother's former last name, Charlton.

Charlton Heston discovered his interest in acting while performing in plays at his high school. He later spent two years studying theater at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. But he left college to join the Army Air Forces during World War Two. In nineteen forty-four he married a college classmate, Lydia Clarke.

The young couple moved to New York City after the war. They tried to find acting jobs. Heston found small roles in the theater as well as in television shows. His performance in a television version of the book "Jane Eyre" caught the attention of the Hollywood producer Hal B. Wallis.

Wallis gave Heston a role in the movie "Dark City," which came out in nineteen fifty. The actor soon found other roles in movies including "The Greatest Show on Earth" directed by Cecil B. DeMille. DeMille later asked Heston to play the role of Moses in his movie "The Ten Commandments" which came out in nineteen fifty-six.  Heston played the Egyptian prince who learns his true identity and leads the Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt to the promised land.  This role made Heston famous and defined his career as a hero and leader.  "The Ten Commandments" was long, very costly and had many special effects.

In nineteen fifty-eight Heston starred in "Touch of Evil."  He played a Mexican drug investigator.  Orson Welles also had an acting role in this film.  Heston persuaded Universal Studios to hire Welles to direct the movie. "Touch of Evil" has since become a great example of the kind of crime movie known as "film noir."

The nineteen fifty-nine movie "Ben-Hur" made Charlton Heston an even bigger star. He played a Jewish man named Judah Ben-Hur who is imprisoned unjustly and rebels against the rule of Rome in ancient Judea.  The movie is most famous for a long scene in which Ben-Hur competes in an exciting chariot race against a Roman commander he considers his enemy. Recreating such a large event on film required a great amount of money and technical skill.

(SOUND)

Many actors would have used a professional stunt man to carry out such a dangerous activity as a chariot race. But Charlton Heston did much of the work himself. He trained for weeks to learn how to skillfully lead a team of speeding horses.

After Ben-Hur wins the chariot race, he speaks with Esther, the woman he loves. She wants him to forget about his hatred towards the Roman government in power.

(SOUND)

ESTHER: Oh Judah, rest, sleep. For a few hours of the night, let your mind be at peace.

JUDAH: Peace? Love and peace! Do you think I don't long for them as much as you do? Where did you see them?

ESTHER: If you had heard this man from Nazareth…

Esther tells Judah about having listened to the teachings of the prophet Jesus.

JUDAH: Children of God? In that dead valley where we left them? I tell you every man in Judea is unclean and will stay unclean until we've scoured off our bodies the crust and filth of being at the mercy of tyranny. No other life is possible except to wash this land clean.

ESTHER: In blood?

JUDAH: Yes, in blood!

At the time, "Ben-Hur" was one of the most costly and complex movies ever made. It cost MGM Studios fifteen million dollars to produce. The popularity of the movie alone helped improve the financial situation of the studio. "Ben-Hur" won eleven Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Charlton Heston.

(MUSIC)

In the nineteen fifties and sixties, many actors used "Method acting" to produce a believable performance. Actors like Marlon Brando would explore their personal emotions and experiences to create a realistic character. Charlton Heston chose instead to use objects in real life to build a character. For example, he would think about the way his character looked and what clothes the character would wear.

Heston studied intensely to understand his characters. For example, in the movie "The Agony and the Ecstasy" Heston played the role of the sixteenth century Italian artist Michelangelo. Heston learned how to paint and sculpt so that he could realistically imitate the artist's actions. He also studied the hundreds of letters written by Michelangelo to more fully understand the artist's personality.

Heston starred in many adventure movies during the nineteen sixties.  His face and body represented strength, manliness and heroism in many different roles. He played cowboys, soldiers, athletes. His movies included "El Cid", "Khartoum", and "The Greatest Story Ever Told."  In the science fiction film "Planet of the Apes" he played an astronaut who is enslaved by a society of intelligent and powerful non-human rulers.

(SOUND)

GEORGE TAYLOR: Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!

In the nineteen seventies, Heston appeared in popular disaster movies like "Earthquake," "Skyjacked" and "Airport 1975."  Charlton Heston once said that over his career he played three presidents, three holy men and two artistic geniuses. He joked that if that did not make a person feel self-important then nothing would.

(MUSIC)

Throughout his life, Charlton Heston was active in social and political causes. In the nineteen fifties and sixties, he worked to defend civil rights. In nineteen sixty-three he helped gather artists to participate in the March on Washington, D.C. to demand racial equality. It was at this historic event that the civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior, gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.  Mr. Heston was a very public supporter of Dr. King.

Charlton Heston was also very active in the movie industry. He was president of the Screen Actors Guild for six years starting in nineteen sixty-five.  He also worked to help establish the American Film Institute. In nineteen seventy-seven he was honored for his service in the industry. He received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

He later received other awards for his lifetime of work.  In nineteen ninety-seven he was awarded a Kennedy Center Honor. And, in two thousand three, President Bush gave Charlton Heston a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

Later in his life, Heston became more socially and politically conservative. He supported Republican Party politicians.  And he became known for actively opposing laws to control the private ownership of guns.  In nineteen ninety-eight Heston was elected president of the National Rifle Association. This organization works to oppose gun control laws. It considers the right to own a gun an important civil right guaranteed by the United States Constitution.

Charlton Heston became famous for a speech he gave for the N.R.A. in two thousand. He held up a large rifle used in the seventeen hundreds.  He said the only way the government could take away his gun was from his "cold, dead hands." Heston wrote about his opinions in books including "In the Arena" and "To Be a Man: Letters to My Grandson."

In two thousand, Charlton Heston issued a statement announcing that he had a nerve disorder whose signs were like Alzheimer's disease.  He died in two thousand eight at his home in Beverly Hills, California. He was eighty-four years old.  The memory of Charlton Heston will live on in the powerful heroes he brought to life in his movies. His style of acting and the movies he made represent a special period in the history of Hollywood.

(MUSIC)

This program was written and produced by Dana Demange. I'm Shirley Griffith. And I'm Barbara Klein. Join us again next week forPEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English.

An interview with Barrichello

Source: www.maganews.com.br 

Q: How has the preseason build up been for you?

Rubens Barrichello: This is my second year with the team and we are in much better shape than we were this time last year. Everything has been prepared well and the team are doing a really good job getting everything ready in time for Melbourne.

Q: How does the FW33 compare to last year’s car?

RB: I think we are better on performance than last year. The car is a different animal though so there is a different way of treating it, but I quite like it. How much faster it is, is very difficult to know, but the car feels better than last year’s to drive.

Q: What is your opinion about the tyre degradation we are seeing?

RB: It is difficult for everyone but it depends on the balance you have. It gets to a point where tyre performance has completely gone and you can’t bring it back. You have to look after them but even then you wouldn’t realistically be able make them survive a whole race.

Q: What would you consider to be a successful weekend for you in Australia?

RB: There is still a question mark about where we stand I know that we have improved but there are teams either side of us. I know how optimistic I am and I know how much I would love to say that we will do really well, but what I will say is that I want to be in Q3 and to score points, and I think that is achievable.

Q: What are your thoughts on the load on drivers in the cockpit now you have had some time testing both KERS and the moveable rear wing?

RB: Running with both KERS and the rear wing is tough. As soon as you do a lot of running you get used to the situation, but every new track will be a new challenge. Hopefully we will get a little bit more of an explanation as to how the wing will work, as originally it was only to be used at the start and in straight lines to overtake, but now it seems to be engaged at most corners. With KERS you have to look at the steering wheel to save as much as you want and to use it in the right places, so you’re not looking straight ahead all the time. This is one of the things we are taking about with Charlie Whiting and Jean Todt to try to improve.

The Williams F1 Communications Office

IAN RANKIN'S EDINBURGH

 

Source: www.speakup.com.br

Language level: Advanced

Speaker: Mark Worden

Standard: British accent

Ian Rankin published his first novel in 1986, but success arrived when He published his second novel the following year. It was called Knots and Crosses and it introduced a new character in fiction: Inspector Rebus, a hardened detective who attempts to solve crimes in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh. Rankin went on to publish a further 16 Rebus novels, but decided to stop in 2007, when the detective reached the age of 60 and retired.

The Rebus books have been adapted for television and they have been translated into at least 25 languages. They are said to account for 10 per cent of crime fiction sales in Britain.

Not surprisingly, Rankin and Rebus have created something of a tourism industry in Edinburgh. There are Rebus walking tours and you can even download a free iPhone app called “Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh.”

THE DARK SIDE

Yet Rankin, who moved to Edinburgh when he went to university, isn’t the city’s only famous writer, Robert Louis Stervenson, the creator of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, was from here, as was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the inventor of Sherlock Homes. More recent examples include Muriel spark and Irvine Welsh, author of the cult novel Trainspotting. Their books have a dark side and we asked Ian Rankin whether the same could be said of Edinburgh:

Ian Rankin

(Scottish accent)

There are two towns, there’s the Old Town, which runs from the Castle to the Palace of Holyrood, where the Queen stays when she’s in Edinburgh, and that was the original city, but then, in the 18^th century, when it became vermin ridden and insanitary, those who could afford to move started building a “New Town” and there was a physical barrier between the two, there was a lake, a loch, which is now Princess Street Gardens. So there was a physical barrier between two towns, the New Town and the Old Town, and the New Town was a place where rationalism grew up, it’s a place where your scientists and your economists would sit and debate how the world was going to be. And that’s where Robert Louis Stevenson lived when he was a child, his father, his whole family were engineers, they were rationalists, but he was attracted to the chaos that existed in the Old Town.

LOW LIFE

So, as a young man, he would tiptoe out of the house at dead of night and walk up the hill, and go to the taverns where poets and vagabonds and drug addicts and alcoholics and prostitutes would hang out, and so he was seeing those two sides, the rational and the chaotic, the Jekyll and the Hyde. So the city actually, structurally has that, it has that divide.

And when you arrive in Edinburgh, you arrive in hat seems a very civilised city, you arrive at Waverley Station, by rail, which is named after a novel. As you step out, the first thing you see is the huge statue to Sir Walter Scott, the novelist, the biggest statue to a writer in the world, we believe, certainly in Europe. So very imposing and very cultured, but if you go outside the periphery, when you get to the territory that Irvine Welsh writes about in Trainsportting you see there’s another side to Edinburgh, that’s just below the surface.

INSPIRATION

We then asked him why Edinburgh was such a productive place for writers.

Ian Rankin

I don’t know. I mean, it wasn’t always like that. I mean, there’s big gaps in its history. I mean, you had Sir Doyle, arguably, although he left and never wrote about the place. You had Stevenson, who you know, didn’t set his most famous book there, Jekyll and Hyde is set, in London, it’s not set in Edinburg, but not many. Then you get to the modern age, there seems to be a gap until you get to Muriel spark, with Miss Brodie, although the vast majority of her books were set abroad, many in Italy because she lived in Italy for many years. And then you come to Irvine Welsh and you get this explosion of people writing about Edinburgh, in the vernacular, and also writing about contemporary Edinburgh, and not the city of the past.

NEIGBOURS

But now Edinburgh contains multitudes of writers, it has changed since…when I arrived as a student in 1978 I couldn’t find anybody who was writing novels about contemporary Edinburgh, there just didn’t seem to be any. There were a few historical novelists, Dorothy Dunnett being the leading example, but nobody writing about contemporary Edinburgh and now, since Trainspotting, there are dozens of authors.

I mean, in my street, I’m not the only novelist in my street: you know, there’s Alexander McCall Smith lives two houses up the road from me, J.K Rowling lives just round the corner, Kate Atkinson is a little bit further on, there’s Lin Anderson, the crime writer, nearby, there’s lots and lots of crime writers in Edinburgh, as well as literary novelists.

MANY FACES

And he had more to say on the subject.

Ian Rankin

And what marks us out in the range of styles, there’s no Edinburgh school, there’s no one type of writing about Edinburgh. So Alexander McCall Smith’s Edinburgh is very different from Rebus’ Edinburgh, which is different from Kate Atkinson’s Edinburgh, which is different from Irvine Welsh’s Edinburgh. And it’s as though this small city, this tiny city, half a million people if that, maybe 400.000 people, which can’t grow, it really can’t grow, it’s got the sea to the north, sea to the east, hills to the south, it’s very tightly packed in, it just seems to be fascinating and complex to us.

And I began writing about Edinburgh when I arrived there as a student, to try and make sense of the place, to try and take apart the mechanism, almost as though you’re taking apart an engine, or a watch, or something, and to see what makes it work, what makes it the particular city that it is and that process is ongoing. If I had come to any reasonable conclusions about Edinburgh, I could have stopped writing the books, but I continue to write about Edinburgh because it continues to fascinate me and I still don’t know what makes it tick. 

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Return to Sender

 

Source: 

http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=1772

Author of this exercise: Teacher Angeles from Spain

 

 

Complete the text

 

 

return to sender

return to sender

I gave a letter to the ,

he put it his sack.

bright and early next ,

he brought my letter back.

she wrote upon it:

return to sender, address .

no such number, no such .

we had a quarrel, a lover's spat

i write i'm sorry but my letter keeps coming .

so then i dropped it in the  

and sent it special d.

bright and early next  

it came right back to me.

she wrote upon it:

return to sender, address unknown.

no such person no such .

this time i'm gonna take it myself

and put it right in her .

and if it comes back the very next  

then i'll understand the writing on it

return to sender, address unknown.

no such number, no such zone

Margaret Bourke-White Helped Create Modern Photojournalism

Source: www.voanews.com

I'm Barbara Klein. And I'm Steve Ember with PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English. Today we tell complete our report about photographer Margaret Bourke-White. She helped create the modern art of photojournalism.

(MUSIC)

Margaret Bourke-White began her career as an industrial photographer in the early nineteen thirties.  Her pictures captured the beauty and power of machines.  They told a story – one image at a time.  The technique became know as the photographic essay.  In nineteen thirty-six, American publisher Henry Luce started a new magazine, called Life, based on the photographic essay. In this magazine, the pictures told the story.  Bourke-White had worked as a photographer for one of Luce's other magazines called Fortune.  Luce chose her to work on his new magazine.

Margaret Bourke-White took the picture that appeared on the first cover of Life magazine.  It was a picture of a new dam being built in the western state of Montana.  The light on the rounded supports showed the dam's great strength.  The small shapes of two men at the bottom showed the dam's huge size.  Bourke-White was no longer satisfied just to show the products of industry in her pictures, as she had in the past.  She wanted to tell the story of the people behind the industry:  In this case, the people who were building the dam.

The dam in Montana was a federal project. Ten thousand people worked on it.  Bourke-White took pictures of those people – at the dam, in the rooms where they lived, and in the places where they had fun. With her pictures in Life magazine, she told a story about America's "Wild West" in the twentieth century.

(MUSIC)

Margaret Bourke-White was a social activist.  She was a member of the American Artists Congress.  These artists supported state financial aid for the arts.  They fought discrimination against African-American artists. And they supported artists fighting against fascism in Europe.

In the nineteen thirties, Bourke-White met the American writer Erskine Caldwell. Caldwell was known for his stories about people in the American South. The photographer and the writer decided to produce a book to tell Americans about some of those poor country people of the South.  They traveled through eight states, from South Carolina to Louisiana. Their book, "You Have Seen Their Faces," was published in nineteen thirty-seven. It was a great success.

Caldwell's words were beautiful.  But Bourke-White's pictures could have told the story by themselves. They showed the faces of people in a land that still wore the mask of defeat in America's Civil War.

(MUSIC)

In nineteen thirty-eight, some countries in Europe were close to war. Bourke-White and Caldwell went there to report on these events.  They produced another book together, this time about Czechoslovakia.  It was called "North of the Danube."  The next year Margaret Bourke-White and Erskine Caldwell were married. They continued to work together.

By the spring of nineteen forty-one, Europe had been at war for a year and a half. Bourke-White and Caldwell went to the Soviet Union. They were the only foreign reporters there. For six weeks, Bourke-White took pictures of the Soviet people preparing for war. Then, one night in July, Soviet officials announced that German bomber planes were flying toward Moscow.  No civilians were permitted to stay above ground because of the coming attacks.

As others were hurrying to safety, Bourke-White placed several cameras in the window of her hotel room.  She set the cameras so they would remain open to the light of the night sky.  Then she joined the others in rooms under the hotel. While she waited for the bombing attack to end, her cameras recorded the explosions, which lit up the rooftops of the city.

Before leaving the country, Bourke-White received permission to meet with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. She returned home with his picture and a series of other photographic essays for Life magazine.  She also had enough material for a book on the war in the Soviet Union. Margaret Bourke-White's marriage to Erskine Caldwell ended in divorce in nineteen forty-two.

During World War Two, she became an official photographer with the United States Army.  Her photographs were to be used jointly by the military and by Life magazine. She was the first woman to be permitted to work in combat areas during World War Two.

Bourke-White flew with American bomber planes in England as they prepared to attack enemy targets on the European continent. She wanted to fly with the Army to North Africa, where the allies were fighting German troops in the desert.

But the commanding general told her it would be too dangerous. So she sailed for North Africa instead.  Before she reached the African coast, enemy bombs hit the ship and sank it.  An allied warship rescued Bourke-White and the other survivors and took them to Algeria.

The incident did not stop Bourke-White from reporting on the war.  She flew in an allied bombing attack on a German airfield at El Aouina in Tunisia.  She flew over the terrible fighting in the Cassino Valley in Italy. And she moved along the Rhine River with the United States Third Army, under the command of General George Patton.  At the end of the war, she was with American troops when they entered and freed several Nazi death camps.  She took photographs of the prisoners in the Buchenwald death camp in Germany in nineteen forty-five.

Later, she wrote about the war.  She said she sometimes pulled an imaginary cloth across her eyes as she worked.  In the death camps, she said, the cloth was so thick that she did not really know what she was photographing until she saw the finished pictures.  In addition to her stories for Life magazine, Bourke-White published books on the allied campaign in Italy and on the fall of Nazi Germany.

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After the war, Life magazine sent Margaret Bourke-White to India. She stayed for three years as India prepared for its independence from Britain.  She photographed the battles between Muslims and Hindus. And she met with the leader of India's non-violent campaign for independence, Mohandas Gandhi.  She made a famous photograph of him called "Gandhi at His Spinning Wheel."  She was the last person to photograph Gandhi before he was murdered in nineteen forty-eight.

After that, Bourke-White traveled to South Africa.  Her job was to tell the story of the black people who worked in the country's gold mines.  To get the pictures she wanted, she followed the workers deep into the mine tunnels.

In the early nineteen fifties, she went to Korea to photograph the effects of war on the Korean people. She took a famous photograph of a returning soldier reunited with his mother in South Korea in nineteen fifty-two.  The mother had believed that her son had been killed several months earlier in the Korean War.

Margaret Bourke-White tried to make her pictures perfect. Often, she was not satisfied with what she had done.  She would look at her pictures and see something she had failed to do, or something she had not done right. Reaching perfection was not easy.  Many things got in the way of her work.  She said: "There is only one moment when a picture is there.  And a moment later, it is gone forever.  My memory is full of those pictures that were lost."

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More of Margaret Bourke-White's beautiful pictures were to be lost, sooner than anyone expected.  In the middle nineteen fifties, she began to suffer from the effects of Parkinson's disease.

Her hands shook so badly that she could not hold a camera.  She wrote a book about her life, called "Portrait of Myself."  And, even though she was unable to take photographs, she continued to work for Life magazine until nineteen sixty-nine.  She died in nineteen seventy-one at the age of sixty-seven.

Margaret Bourke-White was a woman doing what had been a man's job. Her work took her around the world, from factories to battlefields.  Her life was full of adventure. She was one of the most important photographers of the twentieth century.

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This program was written by Shelley Gollust.  It was produced by Lawan Davis. I'm Barbara Klein. And I'm Steve Ember.  Join us again next week for PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English.