Route 66, the historic highway known as “America’s Main Street”. The 2, 400-mile, two-lane road, completed in 1932, passed through eight states and three time zones between Chicago and Los Angeles. Historically,     1     with gas stations and dusty little American towns, Route 66 was the road to the    2    land, California.

When it was established in 1926, it was a beacon of progress at the    3    of the automobile age. It became the path to a better life in the 1930s for Okies (流动雇农)    4    the Dust Bowl (沙尘暴). It served troops in the 1940s as their convoys(车队)prepared to enter World WarⅡ. It reached its pop culture peak in the 1950s and 1960s as the icon of the American road trip. It was immortalized in song and was even the    5    of a popular television show.

“Following the publication of ‘Route 66: The Mother Road’ in 1990, I was often asked if I was surprised by all the attention my book received from the news media and the public,” says Michael Wallis, co-founder of the Route 66 Alliance. “My early response was that I was not surprised since I knew there were many others who knew that the historic highway was not only alive and well but that at least 85 percent of the Mother Road was still    6    for travelers to enjoy.”

”However, it was not long before my attitude changed, as I    7    the unprecedented increase of interest in Route 66 across the nation and, in time, around the world. Those numbers have    8    continued to spiral upward. I know that the future of Route 66 is not only assured but glowing as bright as a band of neon (霓虹).”

Small communities are seeing new life as tourists and road-trippers    9    for the old two-lane passage to get a sense of what they were missing on cruise control. Route 66    10    eight states, from the cornfields of Illinois to the beach in California. Oklahoma has over 400 miles within its borders, more than any other state. The road also is known as the Will Rogers Highway, after the Sooner State’s most famous son.

Jiading--Centuries of History, Decades of Change

A book entitled “Jiading–Centuries of History, Decades of Change” by American writer Kate Baker has recently been published in Shanghai. New book launch was held last week at the Old China Hand Style, a major    1    of a series of walking guide books called “Beyond the Concession: Six Walks in Shanghai’s Other Districts.” And Baker’s “Jiading” runs the fourth among the six.

From a foreign point of view, the book has    2    the history of Jiading District back between the year Tang Dynasty(618-907) and the Song Dynasty(960-1279), when Jiading had been “a leading economic and intellectual influence in the region long before Shanghai became a major trading port,” as Bakeris     3    in her book.

Baker first landed in Shanghai in 2011 with her husband, an engineer with Ford, who was sent to work in Shanghai to prepare for the    4    of the Lincoln brand in China. “I and my husband have been traveling around the world in the past 20 years,” Baker said at a(n)    5    with Shanghai Daily. “Wherever I go, I would jump into the local history and culture quickly and deeply.”

Having taken a 15-month online course of Chinese with Harvard’s “ChinaX”, Baker started    6    out on her own. An occasional excursion into the north west of Shanghai, she “discovered” and fell in love with Jiading. Since then, she has visited Jiading    7    , bringing family, friends, and tour groups. At the end of 2013, the Jiading Tourism Bureau officially invited Baker to write a book on Jiading.

With up-to-date facts, useful information and    8    pictures, Baker’s “Jiading” is a well researched guide about interesting areas less than one hour from Shanghai. There are chapters on celebrating the seasonal and agricultural festivals that are unique to the region; stories of    9    figures living in Jiading; changes to the Nanxiang Old Town; tours to numerous gardens, museums and temples; and the development of outdoor recreational activities in Jiading’s Anting Town, such as the F1 car racing, horse riding and golf.

With good public    10    and enough green space, Baker sees Jiading a high growth district of Shanghai, which offers a quality of lifestyle and tourism. “I see a better-planned and forward-thinking of the district government. And I sincerely thank the people of Jiading who welcomed me to their community and trusted me with their narrative,” Baker says.

Pirates had existed for as long as man had sailed the seas. In the 1600s, the sight of the Jolly Roger would     1     fear into the hearts of even the bravest seamen, and it was at this time that they truly began to rule the     2    .

The colonisation of the New World and the birth of the slave trade meant that the oceans were crowded with richly loaded merchant (商人) ships, and many men and women turned to a life of     3     on the high seas. And what a life it was! A bottle of rum (朗姆酒) at breakfast, and a day spent stalking ships and trading spoils in pirate havens.

These hives (聚居地) of villainy, hidden away on islands in the Caribbean and Indian Oceans, served as     4     sites for attacks on enemy outposts and merchant ships. Here, pirates could repair their ships away from the watchful eye of the Navy, while taverns and gambling halls provided welcome     5     for pirates who had spent months at sea.

Over the years, pirates’ lives became easier and even more lucrative. Sailors knew these bandits were skilled, well-armed, and willing to     6     it all— the chance of winning a battle with them was slim. Ships that did put up a fight were shown no     7    , so their best option was to raise the white flag and surrender.

However, as the problem of piracy grew, merchant communities began to take     8     into their own hands, arming and equipping ships at their own expense to protect commerce. These ships,     9     by ‘privateers’, were licensed by the crown and could attack any enemy ship. Over time, the line between privateer and pirate became unclear.

In a world where native populations were being wiped out or bound in chains, pirate life     10     freedom and democracy. It’s easy to see why many found it hard to resist the spoils of the Golden Age of Piracy.

Trade and curiosity have often formed the f    1     of mankind’s greatest a    2    . To complete the great map of the world was a strong p    3     for the people of early civilizations. Marco Polo’s tales inspired European explorers to search for sea r    4     from west to east. However, merchants and e    5     from the East set sail from east to west many years before Columbus first did.

In ancient times, silk from China found its way o    6     to India, the Middle East, and Rome, along what became known as the Silk Road. A trading route across the sea was also e    7     along the coasts of the Indian Ocean, centered around Ceylon (now Sri Lank) Here, merchants from China and many other places met to n    8     trade deals, which also led to more a    9     of each other’s cultures. Over the centuries, further t    10     allowed more exploration of the regions to the west of China, as recorded in Du Huan’s Record of My Travels in the eighth century.

The 1940s House

The house is at 17 Braemar Gardens, West Wickham, Kent, now a suburb of Greater London. Series art director Lia Kramer, who had helped create The 1900 House, identified the property and oversaw its restoration. The     1     house was built in 1932 by Bradfield Bros & Murphy, and was retrofitted（翻新）so that the technology and fashions of a middle-class English home of the late 1930s were     2     . It is a three-bedroomed home, with a boiler fueled by coke providing hot water, and there was no telephone or refrigerator. The retrofit included the     3     of central heating, the custom-fitted kitchen cabinets and appliances, and the carpeting as well. The carpeting had been used to cover the original checkerboard floor tiles. Fireplaces were     4     to working condition, and the original French doors which led outside were reinstalled. The existing beds were replaced by iron bedsteads, including twin beds for Michael and Lyn. When neighbours learned of the project, many donated period home furnishings for free. The garden was changed to be     5     of a victory garden, which was also called war garden or food garden for defense.

The family's work in the show was demanding. The family had to act like a typical family of the time, which included the sewing of curtains, building an air-raid shelter, and facing wartime food     6    . Air raids were like real during the show, forcing the family to take     7     in its air-raid shelter. The near-nightly sound of the air-raid siren（fixed in a hallway in the home）left the family upset, even after they returned to their regular lives. The family had to stay in     8     all the time, including when the boys went to school. Even minor aspects of life, such as the depth of water in the bath tub, which could be no deeper than five inches, were     9     .

Filming began on 15 April 2000, and lasted nine weeks. Unlike other     10     reality television shows, the Hymers were not isolated. Their neighbours helped them dig their air-raid shelter, the family also visited a retirement home. Nonetheless, Lyn Hymers later said that the family did feel isolated, and seldom got the sense of community spirit that people living in the 1940s would have felt.

For centuries, beauty has been the currency of womanhood, transcending class, culture, and time. More valuable than intelligence, athleticism, confidence, or kindness, physical beauty has always been a woman's most precious commodity.

In the Middle Ages, women would bleed themselves to achieve a pale complexion. A paleface     1     wealth. and nobility. Lead poisoning as a result of skin and hair powdering was equally common throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. Complexion     2     edible wafers made of arsenic, known to cause cancer, promised to transform the most sallow (yellowish and unhealthy) skin into     3     health; remove pimples; and clear the face of freckles and tan.

Women's bodies were equally under criticism or attack. Corsets(紧身衣), at the height of their     4     in the 19lh century, prompted women to remove ribs and endure skeletal deformities and organ damage, in addition to the inconvenient and frequent fainting spells that they caused.

The list of dangerous, violent, and harmful practices imposed on women's bodies is endless, and the pathological obsession with female beauty has hardly     5     in recent years. Rather, with globalization and mass production, the 20th century brought unprecedented exposure to the beauty industry and saw the     6     of unrealistic beauty standards. Today, beauty is a $488 billion industry. where the Asia—Pacific now accounts for one third of the industry's global value and is one of the world's fastest—growing markets.

It is uncomfortable to acknowledge that, despite significant progress in women's rights, beauty continues to endure and be     7     as the dominant currency for women. Female beauty, no matter how expanded and     8     the definition, will continue to be an oppressive restriction on women unless we challenge the system that advocates the notion that beauty is a woman's primary currency. This notion harms women, occupies a majority of their time, and distracts society from the diversity of talents that we have to offer.

The answer to this problem is not the creation of more space for beauty content and conversation. Instead, let's lift and celebrate the diversity of other areas of female     9     including their contribution to sport, history, academia, science, politics, and business This does not mean that we ignore beauty entirely. Instead, we must admit that there is a toxic preoccupation with female beauty that is driven by a     10     on women's shame and insecurity.