1 . Sunday evening, October 30, 1938, was peaceful in New York City. Some people were returning home from a trip to the countryside, and others were sitting down to dinner. In those days, televisions were not very common. Most people listened to the radio for news and entertainment.

At eight o’clock that evening, there was a concert of dance music, but Suddenly, the programme was cut off by a news report: a large spaceship had landed in a field and an army of Martians (火星人) was moving towards New York City and then the radio went silent.

People felt worried. Some drove out of the city as quickly as possible, but soon the roads were crowded with cars. Some people put wet towels on their faces because they thought there was a gas attack. In New Jersey, some farmers went out with guns. Although it was dark, they found a large cylinder (圆柱体) standing in a field, and, thinking it was the Martian spaceship, the shot at it many times.

Many people were so frightened that they did not hear the next announcement on the radio: “Ladies and gentlemen, you are listening to a radio play called The War of the Worlds.”

A message was sent to police stations that there was no real Martian attack, and the police Offices soon returned calm to New York City.

Many people were very angry that they had been fooled by the play, and complained to the radio station. But what about the spaceship that the farmers found in the field? The next morning, they found that they had damaged a large water tank (罐)!

3 . After more than 2 months trapped in a collapsed copper (铜) and gold mine in the desert, all of 33 Chilean miners (矿工) were rescued Wednesday. With ingenuity and cutting-edge technology, the men have survived for 69 days, some 700 meters underground fending off hunger, anxiety and illness in a record-setting feat of survival. How did they survive the ordeal? Have a close look.

Before the miners were reached, they survived for 17 days on food already stored in the emergency shelter. They rationed themselves to 2 spoonfuls of tuna, half a cookie and a half-full glass of milk every 48 hours. Then a 6-inch diameter bore hole allowed food and water supplies to be sent down to the mine. Doctors then put the men on a solid diet of meat and rice, with a strict 2,200-calorie limit to keep them slim enough to fit in the evacuation shaft, which is just 66cm in diameter.

Yonny Barrios Rojas, 50, used knowledge gained on a nursing course he attended to administer medicine to the group and perform daily health checks.

“I was with God and I was with the devil. They fought and God won,” Mario Sepulveda, the second to be rescued, told CNN. He said he grabbed God’s hand and never doubted that he would be rescued.

4 . Leah Brown aged 36 fell several hundred feet from Oregon’s highest mountain right before the eyes of a group of volunteer rescue workers who rushed to her aid and helped save her life.

The woman was coming down a popular path (小路) on Mt. Hood, about 70 miles east of Portland, on Saturday morning, according to the local police. Mt. Hood is the highest in Oregon, standing at around11.240 feet.

The fall was seen by members of Portland Mountain Rescue (PMR), a volunteer organization focused on helping people in mountainous areas. The group called 911 and rushed to the woman, providing medical care. They helped keep the woman warm for seven hours as the police worked to get her off the mountain safely. Finally, the woman was evacuated (转移) to a parking lot at 9:30 pm and taken to a hospital.

The climber, Leah Brown, said she didn’t know what caused her fall. “I can only guess it was either an ice tool or a crampon (冰爪) that didn’t land and stick like it should have, so I became detached from the mountain,” Brown said. “The thing I’d like to most stress is my appreciation for the members of PMR who evacuated me and took good care of me the whole time,” Brown added. “They saved my life. ”

In a statement after the rescue, PMR warned of the dangerous winter conditions at the mountain. “The short days and lower temperatures mean that the snow tends to be very hard and icy, and the conditions tend to be much steeper. Climbing the mountain in icy conditions is much more difficult,” the group said.

6 . Rescue teams desperately sought survivors on August 6th after two boats carrying migrants sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa.

In the immediate aftermath of the boats’ loss on August 5th, Italy’s coastguard said it had rescued 57 people and recovered two dead bodies— those of a woman from Ivory Coast and her 1-year-old child. Local media reported on Sunday that at least 30 people remained missing and were feared dead.

Italy’s Ansa news agency said survivors described how the two boats carrying people trying to illegally enter the European Union had set off from the Tunisian port of Sfax on Saturday. One boat was thought to have had 48 people on board and the other 42. Most were reportedly from sub-Saharan Africa.

Reuters said the coastguard rescued the survivors from the water about 46 kilometers southwest of Lampedusa, which is about halfway between the North African nation of Tunisia and the larger Italian island of Sicily. The island has become a major destination for migrants from Africa wanting to enter the EU and claim asylum (政治避难) .

Italy’s interior ministry said 92, 000 people have arrived in Italy irregularly by sea so far this year to apply for asylum in the EU. During the same period last year, 42, 600 made the very dangerous journey.

The ministry said at least 2, 000 migrants have turned up on the island of Lampedusa in the past few days alone. Most had been rescued by the coastguard and by various charities from small boats in the Mediterranean Sea.

The International Organization for Migration, or IOM, which is the United Nations’ migration agency, said on Sunday both boats that sank on Saturday had been hit by major storms.

Flavio Di Giacomo, a spokesman for the IOM, told the Agence France-Presse news agency an official examination had been launched into the circumstances surrounding the loss of the boats. He said the probe will be conducted from the town of Agrigento, on the island of Sicily. “Whoever allowed them, or forced them, to leave with this sea is equal to a mad criminal,” he said. “Rough seas are forecast for the next few days. Let’s hope they stop. It’s sending them to slaughter (屠杀) with this sea.”

Emanuele Ricifari, the chief of police in Agrigento, said the people-traffickers (人贩子) would surely have known rough seas were expected.

8 . Can you imagine just completing a life-saving training course and then having to test out your skills the very next day - on your best friend? 16-year-old Torri’ell Norwood was behind the wheel of her car when another driver hit her car. The crash made the car containing Norwood and her three passengers go across someone’s front lawn (草坪) and hit a tree.

The impact jammed Norwood’s side door shut, so she climbed out of the front window. Two of her friends also managed to get out of the car unharmed, but the accident caused her friend A’ zarria Simmons to hit her head on the backseat window. “When I turned around, I didn’t see A’ zarria running with us,” said Norwood. “So, I had to run back to the car as fast as I could. She was just sitting there unresponsive.”

And that’s when the training Norwood had just learned kicked in. “A lot of people started to gather around to see what was happening. I started shouting, ‘Back up. She needs space.’” After pulling Simmons from the car, Norwood checked her vital signs. Unable to detect a pulse (脉搏), she immediately began employing the CPR (心肺复苏) techniques she’d so recently learned on Simmons. Doctors arrived shortly and transported Simmons to the nearest hospital.

Norwood, a junior at St. Petersburg’s Lakewood High School, participates in the school’s Athletic Lifestyle Management Academy (ALMA). “We do vital signs and they learn how to take blood pressure and check pulse rates. We have just about 100 students in our academy,” said Erika Miller, Norwood’s teacher.

Miller noted that most of her former students never have the opportunity to use their CPR training until they become nurses or emergency medical technicians. “Not while they are still a student of mine and definitely not within 24 hours,” she said, adding: “It is what every teacher dreams of, you know, that somebody listens, pays attention, and learns something.”

10 . When she was 21 years old, Laura Carstensen went to a concert with some co-workers. After the concert she ended up in a car driven by a young man who was drunk. As they were driving back to town, the driver was weaving across lanes and Carstensen asked him to slow down. Suddenly, she found herself lying on the side of the road outside of the car. The driver had driven off the road and the car had rolled down the hill. Carstensen had been thrown out of a window and was badly injured.

Fortunately, a truck pulled up near Carstensen and two men got out to help her. She told them she was cold and they went back to the truck to get a blanket for her. Carstensen was in shock and thought that she would ruin the blanket with her blood, but the men reassured (安抚) her that it didn’t matter. They laid the blanket on her and showed kindness and care during a challenging moment.

Carstensen spent months in the hospital recovering from her injuries, which included more than 20 broken bones. She is grateful to have survived and to be able to walk again. The kindness shown by the truckers that night has always stayed with her. She was touched by the fact that they cared enough to help her with her immediate challenge of feeling cold, even though it was the least of her troubles.

Carstensen remembered, “It was a gentle gesture. And I’ve always kept a blanket in my trunk ever since then, just in case.”