1 . The History of Music Festivals

Outdoor music festivals have become a big gathering of summertime for many adults. While music festivals appear to be a recent development, their history dates back to hundreds of years ago. But they have always been about bringing people together to share a common cultural experience through music.     1    

The earliest known music festival occurred in the 6th century BC. After centuries’ development, by the late 1960s, Rock bands began to organize their own music festivals. Perhaps the first formal and well-known festival to Rock was the Monterey Pop Festival in 1067, which brought that band to the attention of American audiences.     2     It started in 1968 as an event with about 10,000 people.

By 1970, the festival grew to bring in more than 600,000 people, showing the popularity of music festivals to organizers. Many others also began to organize such events. The Summerfest Festival was established in 1968.     3     Interestingly, this festival made cities realize festivals could bring many benefits. This helped to spread the idea of creating not only musical festivals but also other types of festivals, such as those related to food and film.

    4     It drew so many people, making it the first large Rock music festival. Billed as “three days of love and peace”, Woodstock featured many well-known bands and artists, making Rock music festivals known to many Americans and Europeans.

Today, it’s hard to imagine summer without musical festivals. Many genres now have their own music festivals, ranging from Classical music to Heavy Metal. Countries in every habitable continent have music festivals.     5     Others are intended for younger audiences or those who prefer period-based music. Music festivals have become very popular venues that have become well established as part of summer culture.

In the middle of the 19th century, the British were busy     1     (explore) the four corners of the world. Explorers would return in their sailing ships with stories of     2     (attract) places and people. They would also bring back samples(样本) of newly discovered animals and plants     3     had never been seen in the western world before. In 1840, gardens at Kew Park in southwest London were developed so these newly discovered plants could grow.     4     (make) them flourish (茁壮成长) in England’s cold and frosty weather, special buildings     5     (design) at that time, and they could maintain the correct heat and humidity(湿度). One was called the Temperate House.

Opened in 1863, the Temperate House was one of the very first     6     (glasshouse) to be built. It has been home to some of the rarest, most exotic(奇异的) and threatened plant species in the world. The Temperate House, whose walls are made from squares of glass,     7     (cover) 4,880 square metres. This allows the sunlight and     8     (warm) to flood in whenever the sun is shining. It was closed to the public in 2013 and 500 plants were taken out of the building and rehoused.     9     has taken over five years to replace much of the original iron and woodwork. The Temperate House has reopened now. The 500 plants that were taken out have been put back,     10     9,500 plants being added.

3 . Legend(传说) says that soap was first discovered on Sappo Hill in Rome. According to legend, a group of Roman women were washing their clothes in the River Tiber at the base of a hill. Then some fat from the dead animals ran down into the river.     1     The women soon found that using that thing made the clothes easier to wash.

    2     The evidence for this is Babylonian boxes dated at around 2800 B. C. Words on the boxes present the earliest known written soap recipe, which show how the product was made. They show the product was made from fat combined with wood ash(灰) and water.

    3     The Ebers Papyrus shows that ancient Egyptians combined both animal and vegetable oils with salts to produce a soap—like thing. According to Pliny the Elder, the Phoenicians made soap from goats’ fat and wood ash in 600 B. C.

Pompeii was one of the cities destroyed by the volcanic eruption (火山爆发)of Mt. Vesuvius in its ruins. The discovery suggests that the industry was started.     4     This is a big discovery for us to study the history of soap.

During the early century of the Common Era, although the Romans were well known for their public baths, generally soap was not used for personal cleaning; it was used for the treatment of disease.     5