中学生百科英语2.docx

1、中学生百科英语2中学生百科英语 2:Thoughts& Notions01 The Zipper02 The Postage Stamp03 Pencils and Pens04 The Umbrella05 The Metric System06 Thai Boxing07 Sumo Wrestling08Tarahumara Foot Races09 Olympic Sports10Greatathletes11The Puffer Fish12Foods from Around the World13Chocolate14The Blue Revolution15Twenty-One D

2、ays Without Food16The Marie Celeste17The Roanoke Settlement18The Easter Island Statues19The Tunguska Fireball20Mystery of the Monarchs21The History of Money22Mass Marketing23Inflation24Doing Business Around the World25Credit Cards1The ZipperThe zipper is a wonderful invention. How did people ever li

3、ve without zippers?They are very common, so we forget that they are wonderful. They are very strong,but they open and close very easily. They come in many colors and sizes.In the 1890s, people in the United States wore high shoes with a long row of buttons. Clothes often had rows of buttons, too. Pe

4、ople wished that clothes were easier to put on and take off.Whitcomb L. Judson, an engineer from the United States, invented the zipper in 1893. However, his zippers didnt stay closed very well. This was embarrassing, and people didnt buy many of them. Then Dr. Gideon Sundback from Sweden solved thi

5、s problem. His zipper stayed closed.A zipper has three parts: 1.Thereare dozens of metal or plastic hooks (called teeth) in two rows. 2. These hooks are fastened to two strips of cloth. The cloth strips are flexible. They bend easily. 3. A fastener slides along and joins the hooks together.When it s

6、lides the other way, it takes the hooks apart.Dr. Sundback put the hooks on strips of cloth. The cloth holds all the hooks in place. They dont come apart very easily. This solved the problem of the first zippers.(212 words)2The Postage StampBefore the invention of the postage stamp, it was difficult

7、 to send a letter to another country. The sender paid for the letter to travel in his or her own country.Then the person in the other country paid for the rest of the trip. If a letter crossed several countries, the problem was worse.Rowland Hill, a British teacher, had the idea of a postage stamp w

8、ith glue on the back. The British post office made the first stamps in 1840. They were the Penny Black and the Twopence Blue. A person bought a stamp and put it on a letter. The post office delivered the letter. When people received letters, they didnt have to pay anything. The postage was prepaid.P

9、ostage stamps became popular in Great Britain immediately. Other countries started making their own postage stamps very quickly.There were still problems with international mail. Some countries did not want to accept letters with stamps from other countries. Finally, in 1874, a German organized the

10、Universal Postal Union (UPU). Each country in the UPU agreed to accept letters with prepaid postage from the other members. Today, the offices of the UPU are in Switzerland. Almost every country in the world is a member of this organization. It takes care of any international mail problems.Today, po

11、st offices in every country sell beautiful stamps. Collecting stamps is one of the most popular hobbies in the world, and every stamp collector knows about the Penny Black and the Twopence Blue.3Pencils and PensNo one knows who invented pencils or when it happened. A Swiss described a pencil in a bo

12、ok in 1565. He said it was a piece of wood with lead inside it. (Lead is a very heavy, soft, dark gray metal.) Pencils werent popular, and people continued to write with pens. They used bird feathers as pens.Then, in 1795, someone started making pencils from graphite, and they became very popular. G

13、raphite is like coal. (Coal is black, and we burn it for heat and energy.) Today, people make pencils in the same way. They grind the graphite, make it into the shape of a stick, and bake it. Then they put it inside a piece of wood. One pencil can write 50,000 English words or make a line 55 kilomet

14、ers long.People wrote with feather pens and then used pens with metal points. They had to dip the point into ink after every few letters. Next, someone invented a fountain pen that could hold ink inside it. A fountain pen can write several pages before you have to fill it again.Two Hungarian brother

15、s, Ladislao and Georg Biro, invented the ballpoint pen.They left Hungary and started making ballpoint pens in England in 1943, during World War II. English pilots liked the pens. They couldnt write with fountain pens in airplanes because the ink leaked out. Later, a French company called Bic bought

16、the Biros company.Some people call ballpoint pens Bics. Australians call them biros. Whatever we call them, we use them every day.4The UmbrellaThe umbrella is a very ordinary object. It keeps the rain and the sun off people.Most umbrellas fold up, so it is easy to carry them.However, the umbrella ha

17、s not always been an ordinary object. In the past, it was a sign of royalty or importance. Some African tribes still use umbrellas in this way.Someone carries an umbrella and walks behind the king or important person.Umbrellas are very old. The Chinese had them more than 3,000 years ago. From there,

18、 umbrellas traveled to India, Persia, and Egypt. In Greece and Rome, men wouldnt use them. They believed umbrellas were only for women.When the Spanish explorers went to Mexico, they saw the Aztec kings using umbrellas. English explorers saw Native American princes carrying umbrellas on the east coa

19、st of North America. It seems that people in different parts of the world invented umbrellas at different times.England was probably the first country in Europe where ordinary people used umbrellas against the rain. England has a rainy climate, and umbrellas are very useful there.Everybody uses umbr

20、ellas today. The next time you carry one, remember that for centuries only great men and women used them. Perhaps you are really a king or queen, a princess or prince.5The Metric SystemPeople all over the world use grams, kilograms (kilos), meters, and liters. These are all ways to measure things. T

21、hey are all part of the metric system.During the French Revolution (1789-1799) against the king, the revolutionary government started the metric system. Before that, every part of France had a different system for measuring things. Also, cloth makers measured cloth with one system. Jewelers used ano

22、ther system. Carpenters used another. Other countries used different systems. The revolutionary government wanted one scientific system of measurement. They asked a group of scientists and mathematicians to invent a system.The mathematicians and scientists decided to use the numbers ten, hundred, an

23、d thousand for their system.Next, they had to decide on a natural length. They chose one ten-millionth (1/ 10,000,000)o f the distance from the equator to the North Pole. They called this distance the meter. Then they chose the gram for weighing things. A cubic centimeter of water weighs 1 gram.Math

24、ematicians and scientists worked for 20 years until they finally had a complete measuring system. The biggest problem was measuring the meter.The metric system was a wonderful gift to the world. There are only a few countries that dont use it. The United States is one. The metric system is truly an

25、international system.6Thai BoxingBoxing is popular in many countries. Two fighters wear boxing gloves on their hands. The boxers hit each other until one is knocked out or until the final bell rings.Each part of the fight is three minutes long. It is called a round.Thai boxing is different.The boxin

26、g match begins with music. Then the two fighters kneel and pray to God. Next, they do a slow dance that copies the movements of Thai boxing. During this dance, each fighter tries to show the other that he is best.Then the fight begins. In Thai boxing, the fighters can kick with their feet and hit ea

27、ch other with their elbows and knees. Of course, they hit with their hands, too.Each round is three minutes long. Then the boxers have a two- minute rest. Most boxers can fight only five rounds because this kind of fighting is very difficult.Thai boxing began over 500 years ago. If a soldier lost hi

28、s weapons in a battle, he needed to fight with just his body. The soldiers learned how to use all the parts of their bodies. In 1560, the Burmese army captured Naresuen, the King of Thailand, in a war. King Naresuen was a very good boxer. He won his freedom from Burma by defeating all the best Burme

29、se fighters. When he returned to Thailand, his people were very proud of him. Thai boxing became a popular sport.7Sumo WrestlingSumo wrestling is a national sport in Japan. Every year there are six tournaments,and millions of Japanese watch them on television. A tournament is a series of matches.Sum

30、o is almost as old as the nation of Japan itself. Stories say that there was sumo wrestling over 2,000 years ago. There are written records of national sumo tournaments in the 8th century.In many sports, athletes are thin and can move very quickly. However, sumo wrestlers weigh from 100 to 160 kilos

31、 (kilograms). One famous wrestler weighed 195kilos. Sumo wrestlers do not move quickly, and sumo wrestling is a very slow sport.Sumo wrestlers start training when they are boys. They exercise to make their bodies strong. They also eat a lot.They wrestle in a round ring with a sand floor. A wrestler

32、loses the match if he leaves the ring. He is also the loser if any part of his body except his feet touches the floor. Each wrestler tries to push the other down on the floor or out of the ring.Sometimes one wrestler just steps aside when the other wrestler rushes toward him.Then, the wrestler who is rushing falls down or moves out of the ring.Sumo is not very popular in other countries, but the Japanese think that it is a very exciting sport.8Tarahumara Foot RacesThe Tarahumara live in the mountains in the stat