1 . Even today, kites are fun for the young and the old. Elderly Chinese _________ them in the middle of Beijing, cleverly avoiding trees and power lines. Many of the earliest records of kite-flying seem to indicate that, even when it began, it was done just for _________. The Chinese philosopher, Mo Di, who _________ from 468 to 376 BC, is reported to have _________an eagle out of wood and, after three years of perfecting the eagle, he got it to fly — one of the earliest kites in recorded history! Mo Di’s student, Gongshu Ban (also called Lu Ban) _________ his teacher’s technique, making his own bird, a magpie, and crafting it from bamboo rather than wood. His magpie could stay up for _________ three days.

Later in Chinese history, kites were used for more serious _________, such as communicating information and measuring the force or direction of the wind. During the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Xuan Zong was treated to a kite-flying show in Yichun County in Penglai Palace, Shandong Province. It was the invention of paper that brought kites to the _________ people. The name fengzheng _________ to the kite was due to a man named Li Ye during the Ming Dynasty. Once, to make his kite more interesting, he __________ a bamboo whistle to the top of the kite, so there would be a sharp zheng sound as the kite flew. Today, of course, with the availability of cheap paper and other lightweight materials, anyone can make as an unusual kite as he wants.

3 . A young lady was sitting in her garden under a tree drinking tea. _______, something white fell and _______ in her drink. It was a cocoon(茧) . As the cocoon rumbled (发出隆隆声) in the hot _______, she realized that it was made from a long, strong and soft _______ . She started thinking about how to _______ the new material. Does this story sound a bit _______ ? It does remind me of Isaac Newton, having the _______of the law of gravity while sitting under an apple tree after he was _______ on the head with a piece of falling fruit.

The story of the young woman and her tea is a popular Chinese legend (传说) about _______ . When silk was first invented, silk clothing was ________ by the rich people, and it was a status symbol. But over time its use spread and a wider range of social classes ________ wearing silk clothes.

As the production of silk increased, it began to be put into industrial ________ and became a part of musical instruments, fishing lines, even wrap paper and trade business.

Silk was ________ traded and spread all the way from China to India and through Central Asia to the Middle East. It was the longest trade route across land, and it allowed early ________ between Europe and China. Italy became one of the major producers of silk and it’s   ________ some of the world’s finest silk cloth is made even today.

6 . The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

The March on Washington brought together many different civil rights groups, labor unions, and ________ organizations, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the American Federation of Labor, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

________, not all civil rights activists were in favor of the march. Bayard Rustin, though one of the main organizers of the march, was concerned that it would turn violent and damage the international ________ of the Civil Rights Movement. Others, like Malcolm X, who helped popularize the militant Black Power Movement, looked down upon the March on Washington because of its nonviolent ________. Calling it the “Farce (闹剧) on Washington,” Malcolm X accused black civil rights activists of teaming with whites and accepting ________ from whites.

On August 28, 1963, 250,000 protesters gathered on the National Mall in Washington, DC to demonstrate ________ full civil, political, and economic rights for African Americans. The March on Washington was one of the largest demonstrations for human rights in US history, and a spectacular ________ of the power of non-violent direct action. 1963 was the 100^th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (《解放黑奴宣言》), and one of the major themes of the rally was that the ________ of emancipation remained unfulfilled. The march began at the Washington monument and ended at the Lincoln Memorial, where representatives of the ________ organizations delivered speeches.

The last speaker of the day was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who delivered what became the most famous speech of the entire civil rights era, the “I Have a Dream” speech, which ________ a world in which people were judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Because of this, a popular ________ has arisen that it was Dr. King who initiated the rally. In fact, the idea for a march on Washington belonged to A. Philip Randolph, a black labor leader who ________ the Negro American Labor Council at the time of the march, and had previously organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first African American labor union in US history.

The sole purpose of the March on Washington was not to eliminate Jim Crow laws, which meant Southern blacks would continue to live in conditions of poverty and inequality, with whites ________ them their hard-won political rights and freedoms, though the protesters certainly desired to bring a ________ end to the segregation that had been institutionalized in the South after the Civil War. Though the organizers of the rally demanded the desegregation of all schools, the majority of the demands revolved around issues of economic ________-like equal access to public facilities and accommodations, housing, education, and jobs.

7 . Recently-leaked historical documents revealed that there were dozens of attempts by German Resistance almost killing Hitler.

If the Munich agreements of Sept. 29, 1938 had not given Hitler the fruits of war with Czechoslovakia without war, some generals might have ________: Secret arrangements had been made to open from within the doors to Hitler’s house so that a military ________ could rush in. If on Nov. 8, 1939, Hitler had not cut short a speech ________ for two hours in Munich, an assassination plan there might have succeeded. Two days later, with ________ thickened around Hitler, an officers’ bomb attempt was abandoned. In a March 13, 1943 attempt, explosives hidden in two bottles of red wine were placed ________ Hitlers’ plane. The fuse (引信) worked, and the firing pins (撩针) struck. Still, the ________ did not explode, perhaps because the explosive, carried in the plane’s cargo hold, was sensitive to cold.

Eight days later, as Hitler entered a military exhibition, an officer ________ a fuse on a bomb beneath his coat and stayed close to Hitler. But after just two minutes in the exhibition, Hitler, with a wild animal’s ________for danger, left through a side door. The officer dashed to a restroom to defuse the bomb.

A 24-year-old captain shocked by Nazi’s cruelty, instantly ________ when the German Resistance asked if he would kill Hitler. In November 1943, with Hitler scheduled to view a display of new uniform, the captain, with a bomb concealed ________ his person, was prepared to light a short fuse and ________ upon Hitler. But the display was ________ when the railroad car containing the uniforms was destroyed by air raid (空袭) on Berlin.

If it had not been unusually hot on July 20, 1944, Hitler’s conference with Stauffenberg and others would have been held in a concrete basement, which would have ________ the explosion of Stauffenberg’s bomb. ________, they met, in an above-ground wooden building, where the force was weakened. Hitler ________ and the planned attempt was discovered in a few hours.

8 . During World War II, a young nurse, Irena Sendler, risked her life to save over 2,500 children. Back in 2008, she was ________with some of the children whom she had saved. They wanted to ________her face to face for what she did.

Irena was only 29 when the war began, and at the time, she was ________at the Welfare Department of the Warsaw municipality in Poland. This gave her the perfect ________to help Jewish people being targeted by the Nazis.

In the 1940s, the Nazis ________the country’s Jewish population to the Warsaw ghetto. The ghetto was meant to ________Jews from the general population, and inside, Jews had to live in ________conditions. By 1942, nearly everyone in the ghetto had been deported (驱逐) to concentration camps and killed.

When Irena heard that, she decided to ________Jewish people. Using her credentials(证件) as a social worker, she was able to get ________to go into the ghetto. Then, she ________to take as many children out of the ghetto as she could secretly, ________over 2,500 of them between 1935 and 1943.

To get the kids out, Irena and her team would ________them in ambulances, lead them through underground sewer(下水道) networks and passageways, or wheel them out in suitcases or boxes. She eventually became one of the main ________behind Zegota, a secret organization that called itself the Council for Aid to Jews.

The Gestapo(盖世太保) ________what Irena was doing in 1943, and when she learned they were ________her, she wrote the names of the rescued children on cigarette papers, put them into two glass bottles and ________them in a friend’s garden. After the war, these bottles were dug up so that the children could be reunited with their families. ________, most of the families died in concentration camps, so many of the kids ________saw their loved ones again.

The Gestapo ________Irena and wanted to kill her, but finally she was saved by Zegota.

Irena received plenty of ________for her bravery, including the Gold Cross of Merit. Though she died later, we continue to honor her memory to this day.