He is the man who has probably been your role model since you were born. And soon your biggest hero will get a special day, on which you can    1    your thanks and let him know how important he is to you.

Father’s Day was originally the idea of a US woman called Sonora Smart Dodd in 1909. Dodd’s father    2    six children after his wife died. Dodd thought there needed to be a day to honor courageous, selfless and loving father. Her father was born on June 19, so she chose the first Father’s Day celebration his birthday in 1910. In 1924, US President Calvin Coolidge     3    the idea of a national Father’s Day. Finally, in 1966, President Lyndon Johnson declared the third Sunday of June as Father’s Day.

Our fathers certainly    4    our love and attention, so do something special for your dad this Father’s Day.

The Germans published the first modern-style newspaper in 1609. News-sheets existed before then, but these were not really newspapers.

Hundreds of years later, people are still buying newspapers. Shops and stalls all over the world     1     millions of newspapers every day.

However, people do not get their news only from newspapers. They can listen to it, as they did long ago, and they can     2     it.

Two inventions, radio and television, have made this     3    . These broadcast many news programmes daily. So people now get news from their radios and TV sets,     4    from papers.

However, newspapers remain     5     because they give the news in more detail than either radio or TV. That is the main reason     6     people continue to buy them.

Before paper was invented, people wrote or drew on materials such as bamboo, silk, animal hide, and wooden blocks. Writing materials were really expensive and few people learned     1    . So few people wrote. This all changed, because of a man     2     Cai Lun.

Paper had already existed(存在) in China, but the process(过程) for producing it was difficult and the paper was of low quality(质量). Cai Lun began     3     with many different materials and different ways     4     those materials into paper. In the year 105, he made it from tree bark(树皮), bamboo, cloth rags(碎布), and fishing nets. His paper was stronger and cheaper than any paper that had been made before.

With Cai Lun’s method, Chinese culture     5     more rapidly over the next several centuries. Because it was much easier     6     ideas and more people learned to read. The use of paper spread abroad,     7     other cultures     8     and spread their ideas.

Today, Cai Lun     9     a national hero in China. And the whole world     10     the clever Chinese papermaker forever.

Every year，Americans eat a lot of hot dogs. July is seen as the National Hot Dog Month，and 23rd July is the National Hot Dog Day. Hot dogs are clearly one of the country's    1    loved foods.

Frankfurt，Germany，is traditionally thought to be the    2    of hot dogs. It is said that a German butcher（屠夫）first    3    the hot dog in the late 1600s.

The term "hot dog" came from a newspaper cartoonist（漫画家）Tad Dorgan. At a 1901 baseball game at the old New York Polo Grounds，vendors（商贩）began    4    hot dachshund sausages in rolls，"Get your dachshund sausages while they're red hot！" Tad drew a cartoon describing the scene but he wasn't    5    how to spell "dachshund" so he simply called them "hot dogs". And the term "hot dog" was born.

Hot dogs are mainly made of    6    and sausages. And by law，a hot dog can contain up to 3.5%of “non-meat fillings”. Don't be scared. They are just some type of milk or soy products used to add to the nutritional value. Many hot dogs may be high in fat，but they are also a good source of protein，iron，and other necessary vitamins.

Ian was born in Sydney, Australia, and grew up near the sea. As a child, he loved swimming, fishing and sailing in Sydney Harbor. After finishing school, he started a construction company, but his     1     love was the sea and sailing. For more than 40 years, he represented Australia in international sailing competitions. In 1987, he was competing in an around-the-world sailing race when he began to notice the huge amount of rubbish in the world’s oceans. When he returned to Australia, he decided to do     2     about it. He started close to home by organizing a community event called “Clean Up Sydney Harbor”. On Sunday, January 8, 1989, more than 40,000     3     came out to make the clean-up a national event. The day was called “Clean Up Australia Day”. It was a huge     4    . Across Australia, about 300,000 people spent the day working to improve their local environment.

Few of us have heard of Nils Bohlin, but whenever we take a car journey, his invention is important to us. Found in almost every modern car, the three-point seat belt can     1     our chances of death or injury by at least 50%. While feeling     2     to this engineer from Volvo, you may also wonder how he came up with such a great idea.

Having worked as a plane designer before, Nils knew clearly that the pilots were willing to put on anything to keep them safe in an accident, but to his surprise, most people in the cars didn’t want to be     3     for even a minute. To improve the safety for people in the cars, he decided to find a perfect system which should be simple, effective and convenient.     4    , he invented the three-point seat belt, which has been considered as one of the greatest inventions in history.

7 .

The first form of payment was the exchange of goods. People usually exchanged animal skins and meat, fruit and vegetables, cloth and     1     stones. In ancient Egypt they used metal bars which were cut into smaller parts if necessary. In the seventh century BC the first coins appeared. They were usually made of silver or gold and their value     2     the amount of metal in each coin. With time, coins became very popular and many countries     3     their own system of money.

Today, people pay for things in different ways they pay in cash, by check or by credit card. The last one, it seems, is the most convenient form of payment. Many people believe that one day money in the form of coins, banknotes, checks and cards will     4     disappear and that all buying and selling will be done through the Internet.

Locks help protect our homes and the things inside them from thieves. Keys that open those locks are really important to home     1    !

Some of the     2     keys, dating back to 700BC were large and made of wood. They opened palace gates and looked like giant toothbrushes.

Hundreds of years later, the Romans made     3     metal keys. In fact, rich Romans wore some of them as     4    . They locked boxes that contained valuables with these keys.

Key styles became more artistic in the 14^th century. Some European locksmiths became famous for making beautiful keys. Kings invited them to         5     their castle keys.

As European cities grew in the 18^th century, so did the number of thieves. The locks and keys became better at preventing thieves from breaking in.

Today, office workers and hotel guests open doors using     6    keycards, cards that are used as keys. There are even smartphone apps for gaining entry to one’s home without a key. Though       7    metal keys may one day disappear, the need for security will     8    .

Do you take keys with you every day?

In the science fiction stories I read，    1    people didn't have computers． Computers were always enormous machines that needed experts to work with them．Often， only the government had access to them． In one story by Issac Asimov， the computer， Multivac is so huge and complicated that they have to    2    it with a special building．

In reality ， however， many people now own computers in their homes． And I'm not just talking about their PCs or Macs， but    3    specialized computers， microprocessors， in their washing machines or in their cars， for example． And these machines are getting smaller and smaller as the years go by． I am convinced that an up﹣to﹣date laptop computer these days    4    more computing power than Asimov's Multivac． And you most certainly don't have to build a house to find some space for it．

Do you live in a city? Do you know how cities began? A long time ago there were only a few thousand people in the world. These people moved from place to place. They moved over the land,     1     animals for food. No one knows how or where these people learned to grow food. But when they did, their life changed. They did not have to look for food     2     .They could stay in one place and grow plants. People began to live near one another. And so the first     3     grew. Many people came to work in the villages. These villages grew very big. When     4     came along, life in the villages changed again. Factories were built. More and more people lived near the factories. Then the cities began and grew very big.