1 . Gettysburg National Military Park was established in 1895, 32 years after the deadly battle. Gettysburg is the most-visited of the Civil War battlefields.

Many visitors start their visit at the Gettysburg Museum of the Civil War. The museum has the world’s largest collection of Civil War objects. The museum has more than 1 million items, from soldiers’ private notebooks and uniforms to original maps of the battlefield. The museum also houses the Gettysburg cyclorama (风景画幕) painting, showing the final attack in the Battle of Gettysburg: Pickett’s Charge. George Pickett was a Confederate general. On July 3, 1863, he led a charge against stronger Union forces. It was a disaster for the Confederate soldiers.

French artist Paul Phillippoteaux and a team of 20 artists created the painting in the 1880s. Phillippoteaux and his team visited the battlefield. It took more than one year for the huge painting to be complete. The cyclorama is 114 metres long and almost 13 metres tall. It has long been one of the most popular parts of the Gettysburg experience. But by the 1990s, the painting was in poor condition. Experts warned that if the cyclorama was not repaired, the painting could be lost.

A restoration project began in 2003. The painting was cleaned and separated into its 14 parts, and later moved into the new centre. There, the original canvas (帆布) was sewn onto new cloth made in China. Park service officials say China was one of the few countries able to produce cloth in the sizes needed. Then each part was hung and sewn together.

A team of cyclorama experts from Poland worked on the project in Gettysburg. The repair work of the Gettysburg Cyclorama marked one of the largest art conservation effort ever in North America.

After the museum, tourists can visit the Soldiers’ National Cemetery, where many of the Union soldiers who died during the Battle of Gettysburg are buried. The cemetery was dedicated on November 19, 1863, the same day President Lincoln gave his “Gettysburg Address”. Historians agree that Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address defined Americans as a people who believed in freedom, democracy and equality.

This year marks the 92nd anniversary of the September 18 Incident.

On September 18, 1931, Japanese troops     1    (blow) up a section of the railway in Shenyang and accused the Chinese military of doing     2    . Using the explosion as a pretext (借口), Japanese forces attacked the Beidaying garrison (卫戍部队)and bombarded (轰炸) Shenyang on the same night,     3    (launch) a full-scale invasion (侵略) of northeast China. During the incident, Chinese troops at the Beidaying garrison were given a no-resistance order and withdrew     4     fighting.

The incident marked     5     beginning of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and was a prelude to the world’s anti-fascist war. This Monday, a bell-tolling ceremony is being held at the 9.18 Historical Museum in Shenyang to pay tribute to the people       6     lost their life in the 14-year war.

The 14-year Japanese invasion resulted in over 35 million victims among Chinese troops and civilians. By commemorating the September 18 Incident, the Chinese people reaffirm (重申) their     7    (commit) to never forget this dark chapter in history and prevent it being repeated.

The commemorations serve as a reminder for the Chinese people     8    (keep) dark days in mind. History has    9     (repeat) shown that invasions and wars are rarely     10    (success), and although evidence might be covered up, justice eventually prevails (占上风).

4 . TOKYO-Japan marked the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombing in its western city of Hiroshima (广岛) on August 6th amid growing calls for Tokyo to reflect on crimes the Japanese army committed during World War II. At a memorial ceremony held at the Peace Memorial Park, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui delivered the Peace Declaration,urging world leaders to stop believing in the theory that nuclear weapons can prevent war.

“They must immediately take concrete steps to lead us from the dangerous present toward our ideal world,” said Matsui, who also urged policymakers to “move toward a security system based on trust through dialogue in pursuit of civil society ideals”. “Mistrust and division are on the rise,” warned United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in his message readout at the ceremony.

A moment of silence was observed at 8:15 am local time, the exact moment when an atomic bomb dropped from a US bomber and exploded over the city on Aug.6, 1945, killing around 140,000 people by the end of that year.

At the event which about 50,000 people attended, Matsui placed in a monument a list of the names of 339,227 victims, including 5,320 deaths confirmed last year. “Japan must immediately sign the Treaty (条约) on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,” Matsui noted in the Peace Declaration, further urging the government to heed the wishes of survivors from the bombing and the peace-loving Japanese people.

The number of survivors of the two atomic bombings including Nagasaki with an average age of over 85, has dropped by 5,346 from a year earlier to 113,649 as of March, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida spoke at the ceremony, saying an atomic bomb made more than 100,000 lose their lives without mentioning whether Japan would sign the treaty, let alone (更不用说) the historical background of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

The prime minister was criticized for hosting the Group of Seven leaders' summit in Hiroshima in May.

While Japan inwardly looks at the tragedies it experienced at the end of WWII, historians and political minds of the international community have encouraged Japan to come to see itself not only as a victim of the atomic bombings but also as the criminal (罪犯) who was involved in these tragic incidents in the first place.

7 . February 13, 2022, marked the 25th anniversary (纪念日) of the Great LEGO Spill — the worst toy-related environmental disaster of all time. On this important day in 1997, the Tokio Express was hit by a huge, 28-foot high wave off the United Kingdom’s southwestern coast, tilting the ship by 60 degrees and causing it to drop 62 containers into the sea. One was filled with about 5 million colorful LEGO bricks!

Shortly after the incident, LECO pieces began washing ashore the beautiful beaches of Cornwall and Devon in southwest England. Many locals rushed to hunt for the toys. Cornwall resident Tracey Williams was among the thousands of locals that searched the beaches regularly to find the little sea-themed pieces.

In 2010 Williams moved to Cornwall and came across some LEGO pieces on her first trip to the beach. Wondering where else they had been found, she created a Facebook group. Called “Lego Lost at Sea”, it allowed her and hundreds of other collectors to share their discoveries. As it turned out, the LEGO bricks were not just washing ashore English beaches. They had also been found in Wales, Ireland, the Channel Islands, France, Belgium, and Holland, showing just how far ocean currents had carried them.

“What we’re finding now are the pieces that sank as well as the pieces that floated,” Williams says. “It’s providing us with an insight into what happens to plastic in the ocean, how far it drifts (漂移) — both on the surface of the ocean and also along the seabed—and what happens to it as it breaks down.”

No one knows when the LEGO bricks will stop appearing on the beaches. But one thing is for sure, that is, the plastic pieces will be around for centuries. A 2020 study analyzing the structure of the washed-up LEGO bricks concluded that the five million pieces could take as long as 1,300 years to degrade (降解) completely. And like all plastic products, the iconic toys will never entirely disappear. Instead, they will break down into tiny “microplastics” and be eaten by ocean animals. They will make their way up the food chain to humans.

9 . After seemingly endless waiting, news finally reached President Abraham Lincoln. The North had won at Gettysburg. The citizens of Pennsylvania created a national cemetery（公墓）for the soldiers who lay dead at Gettysburg. A ceremony was planned. Lincoln received an invitation to attend. He was not asked to give the major speech of the day. That honor was given to a New England statesman and professional speaker named Edward Everett. The president was asked instead to say “a few words”.

As the day approached, Lincoln’s wife asked him to reconsider. Their son, Tad, had fallen ill. Mary Lincoln was near crazy. On the morning of the day, Tad was so sick that he could not eat. Lincoln felt unwell himself, but he decided to go anyway.

On Thursday, November 19, for two hours, Everett held the audience spellbound with his rich voice and inspiring words. Then Lincoln rose to speak. “Four score and seven years ago,” he began in his high pitched（声调高的）voice. He spoke for barely three minutes.

As Lincoln sat down, some eyewitnesses recalled little applause（掌声）. Others heard “not a word, not a cheer, not a shout”. A person taking notes asked Lincoln, “Is that all?” Embarrassed, Lincoln replied, “Yes--for the present.” A photographer in the crowd had not even had time to take a picture.

Lincoln thought his speech was a failure. Some newspapers considered it as “silly” and “boring”. But Everett correctly predicted that the Gettysburg Address would “live among the history of man”. A few days after both of them had spoken at Gettysburg, he wrote to Lincoln, saying that he wished he had come “as close to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes”. Lincoln replied, telling Everett how pleased he was that “the little I did say was not entirely a failure.”

Indeed it was not. It gave the North new hope and purpose as to why it was fighting the war. Today, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is remembered as one of the greatest speeches of all time.

Exceptional beauty, extraordinary grace and e    1     artistry are qualities     2     Tai Lihua to dance on the great stages of the world in more than 40 countries. If that were not exceptional enough,     3     is more is that Tai Lihua is     4     deaf.

The Battle of El Alamein,     5     in the deserts of North Africa, is seen     6     one of the decisive     7     of World War II. The Battle of El Alamein was primarily fought between two of the outstanding commanders Montgomery and Rommel. The Allied victory at El Alamein     8     to the     9     of the Afrika Korps and the German surrender in North Africa     10     May 1943.