The earliest written evidence of a soccer-like game comes from China. During the second and third centuries B.C., Chinese soldiers took part in an activity that involved kicking a ball into a small net. Historians think the game was a skill-building exercise for the soldiers.

In ancient Greece and Rome, teams of up to 27 players played a soccer-type game. In Britain hundreds of years later, during the thirteenth century A.D., whole villages played against each other. With hundreds of people playing, these games were both long and rough. Kicking, punching, and biting were common and allowed.

In 1331, English King Edward II passed a law in an attempt to put a stop to the popular but violent game. The king of Scotland spoke against the game a hundred years later. Queen Elizabeth I, during the late 1500s, passed a law that called for a week of jail for anyone caught playing “football”, or soccer, as we call it. But the game could not be stopped.

Two hundred and fifty years later, people in Britain were still playing a game we would recognize as soccer. A well-known English college Eton developed a set of rules in 1815. A number of other colleges soon agreed to use the same rules, and those schools played against each other. Finally, 50 years later, a formal association was formed to oversee the playing of the game and its rules. In 1869, a rule against handling the ball with the hands transformed the game into the sport of soccer that is wildly popular all around the world.

Chinese seal (印章) carving originated during the Shang Dynasty. In the beginning, the characters carved on seals were the same as     1     (that) used in writing, such as Xiaozhuan of the Qin Dynasty. However, with Chinese writing     2     (become) increasingly standardized and simplified, it became a tradition to use Xiaozhuan for seals.

In ancient times, seals were regarded as     3     guarantee of authenticity (真实性). Today, they are more of a sign of authority of a legal person     4     an artwork.

After the Qin Dynasty, materials for seals were     5     (strict)classified. Jade (玉) was only used for emperors, gold and silver for high-ranking     6     (office) and copper (铜) for the low ranks. Various types of stones were used from the Song Dynasty,       7     led to a boom for seal carving.

    8     (early), seal carving was accomplished only by workers. During the Song Dynasty, scholars and artists began to get involved in it. They combined seal carving with calligraphy and painting,       9     (make) this traditional art more popular in China.

To protect this artistic treasure, Chinese seal carving     10     (include) on the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009.

5 . Hand gestures (手势) have been commonly used in our daily communication. They add to the message by filling in what words sometimes leave behind. But are you somewhat aware of the history that goes behind some of these popular hand gestures?

◆Handshake

Whether you’re greeting someone for the first time, or successfully negotiating (商定) an agreement, shaking hands is usually the go-to gesture. Who decided on this customary gesture, anyway? The history of the handshake dates back to ancient Greece, showing that neither person was carrying a weapon.

◆Thumbs up and thumbs down

Maybe you’re familiar with the popular story of this hand gesture dating back to Roman times. When a gladiator (角斗士) lost, the crowd would either stick their thumbs out to have him killed or just not make any sign at all. The thumbs up decided the gladiator’s fate (命运) . After WWII, thumbs up only came to mean that things were going smoothly. And thumbs down meant the opposite.

◆High five

According to some sources, the high five first became popular when baseball players performed at Dodger Stadium on October 2, 1977. Glenn Burke, one of the capable players, lifted his am high above his head and slapped palms with his teammate Dusty Baker to celebrate a milestone home run, marking what is widely regarded as the first recorded example of a high five.

◆The fist bump

The fist bump comes from boxers in the 1970s after people began imitating how they touched gloves before a competition. Later, instead of shaking hands, first bumps became popular among basketball players. The gesture soon spread to all basketball lovers, and, before long, to the President of the United States.

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In traditional Chinese culture, sky lanterns represent people’s good wishes, carrying them into the sky and making heaven aware of them.

According to Chinese history, sky lanterns, first used by Zhuge Kongming,     1     (send) out to ask for help when he was in trouble.     2     important occasions such as festivals, weddings and birthdays, people often light sky lanterns    3     (express) their blessings and good wishes.

Sky lanterns are made of bamboo and covered with paper,     4     (shape) like lanterns and coming in different sizes, of which most are circular or rectangular (矩形). When lanterns,     5     are seen as bright symbols of happiness and good wishes, are lit, they slowly rise into the air like small hot-air balloons for all to see. When the sky lanterns reach a certain     6     (high), they swing in the wind,     7     (shine) with brilliant and beautiful light.

However, sky lanterns can be     8     (safe). If they are not used carefully, they can cause fires or other accidents. Therefore, before lighting a sky lantern, it is     9     must to take safety precautions (预防措施) and choose a safe location.

Sky lanterns, each of which     10     (represent) good wishes and blessings, bringing great joy and beauty to people, area special part of Chinese traditional culture.

Sima Qian, one of the greatest historians in Chinese history, was born in either 145 or 135 BC.    1    (influence) by his father, who was also a historian, Sima Qian took an interest     2     history when he was a child. He learned Chinese classics from great literary masters, and at the age of 20, he began travelling extensively across the country. He interviewed the local people to get     3     wide range of information. Learning and travelling were exactly     4     helped him in his later career as a historian.

His father's dream was that one day he could write a great masterpiece recording what had happened in history. After his father died, Sima Qian     5     (succeed) his father as Grand Historian, which facilitated his access to,     6     (office) books and files. However, his work proved difficult, because     7     (sort) out all the available resources and checking facts of historical materials required painstaking efforts, His chief concern was whether he could do his job more effectively and     8     (efficient).

As he carried on with his work, something awful happened to Sima Qian. He was put in prison,     9     he suffered a lot of pain physically and mentally,     10     , he was not defeated. He never forgot about his father's dream, in good times or bad times. After more than 10 years of hard work, the Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian), his masterpiece, was completed.

9 . The Curious Origins of the Dollar Sign

The dollar sign is among the world’s most powerful symbols and represents far more than U.S. currency. Yet despite its common appearance in various languages, the origins of the dollar sign remain far from clear. And the dollar sign was in use before the United State was born.

In 1520, the Kingdom of Bohemia began making coins using silver from a mine in Joachimsthal —which is roughly translated from German into English as Joachim’s valley. Logically, the coin was named the Joachimsthaler, which was then shortened to Thaler, the word that proceeded to spread around the world. It was the Dutch variation, the Daler, that made its way across the Atlantic in the pockets and on the tongues of early immigrants, and today’s American-English pronunciation of the word “dollar” still has its echoes. However, it is no straightforward answer to the question of where the dollar sign ($) sprang from.

One of the origin stories links it back to the Bohemian “Thaler”, which featured a huge snake on Christian cross (基督教十字架). It was an indirect reference to the story of Moses, who was a prophet in the Bible, winding a bronze snake around a pole in order to cure people who’d been bitten. The dollar, so it’s said, originated from that sign.

Yet the most widely accepted theory in fact involves coins used in Spain, and it goes like this: In the colonies, trade between Spanish Americans and English Americans was lively, and the PESO was legal money in the U.S. until 1857. It was often shortened to the initial “P” with an “S” hovering beside and a little above it. Gradually, thanks to the careless and untidy way of writing by time-pressed merchants, that “P” combined with the “S” and lost its curve, leaving the vertical stroke like a stake down the center of the “S”.