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).

The Oscars are held every March in the city of Los Angeles. Many of Hollywood’s biggest     1     (celebrity) attend this event,    2     (hope) to win an Oscar award. Since the first ceremony in 1929,    3     only fifteen awards were given out, the Oscars have grown in size and popularity. Now, more than fifty of the gold-plated statues are made every year in the city of Chicago. They then     4     (transport) to Los Angeles for the awards show.

However, on March 8, 2000, someone stole the fifty-five Oscar statues that were made for that year’s ceremony. Soon after, the trucking company     5     (responsibility) for transporting the statues offered a $50,000 reward for them.

A few days later, Willie Fulgear was looking for some boxes in a garbage can near his home in the Koreatown district of Los Angeles. Willie was moving out of his apartment and he needed boxes     6     (pack) his things in. Searching through the can, he found some white boxes. He opened one of them and found an Oscar inside. He had the other boxes     7     (tear) open and got fifty-two Oscars, all     8     perfect condition. He immediately called the police.

Finally Willie Fulgear received     9     $50,000 reward and an invitation to the Oscar ceremony. He didn’t receive an award for his honesty     10     he did go from litter to glitter (闪光) in just one week.

Economic development is necessary if we want to improve society. There comes a time     1     the old must give way to the new.     2     (keep) the right balance between progress and the protection of cultural sites can be a big challenge. Big challenges, however, can sometimes lead to great     3     (solve). In order to benefit the area, the Egyptian government wanted to build a new dam     4     the Nile. But the     5     (propose) led to protests. Later, a committee       6     (establish) to limit damage to the Egyptian buildings and prevent the     7     (lose) of cultural relics. Temples and other cultural sites were taken down piece by piece, and then moved and put back together again in a place     8     they were safe from the water. When the project     9     (end) in 1980, it was considered     10     great success.

"Take good care of yourself, my darling, not just for your own sake, but for mine also," wrote     1     unknown serviceman stationed in the Waziristan region.

The letter is one of the 717 that were never delivered by the ship, the SS Gairsoppa, which     2    (destroy) off the coast of Ireland by a German U-boat on February 16th, 1941. Of the 86 crew members     3     board, only one survived.

With a     4    ( hand) of the more complete letters displayed in an exhibition at the Postal Museum in London in 2018, the museum has been working on the more damaged letters intending     5    (expose ) wartime lives.

Two other letters are from a father to his children in Torquay,     6     the museum believes they may have escaped. The father wrote, “Mummy will send you back to Wycombe sooner or later. Meanwhile we all have to make the     7    (good) of things as they are: the war has upset most people's dreams and     8     (mode) of living including mine!”

“It feels somewhat mournful and appropriate to unite these letters on the     9    (eighty) anniversary of the ship's sinking,"   said conservator Jackie Coppen. "It is inevitable that while     10     (piece) the letters together I have come to form a close relationship with them.”

The Titanic was the largest and most advanced passenger ship of its day. It was considered unsinkable. But on 14th April 1912, on    1    (it) maiden voyage ( 首 航 ) from England to New York, the ship    2    (strike) an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank     3     (short) after midnight. Of the 2,223 people on board, 1,517 drowned.

So why did so many people die in the tragedy? Firstly, the Titanic’s owners fitted the ship     4     only 20 lifeboats. They believed any more would spoil the     5     (appear) of the ship. But this meant there were only enough lifeboats for 1,178 passengers. Secondly, while     6     (load) the lifeboats, the crew observed the “women and children first” rule. This was     7     old custom that said women and children should be saved before men. Because at first men weren’t allowed in the lifeboats, many boats were lowered only half full.     8    the lifeboats had been full, another 500 people might have been saved. In the end, 74% of women passengers survived, but only 20% of men. And many of the men     9     survived were branded as cowards (懦夫) when they got home.

The wreck (残骸) of the Titanic     10     (find) in 1985. It lies about four kilometres below the surface of the water at the bottom of the ocean.

In an afternoon of 1929, a farmer and his son in a village of China’s Sichuan Province accidentally discovered a true wonder of civilization when     1    (dig) a well. The farmer’s discovery of     2     (treasure) including bronze, gold and jade from the ancient Kingdom of Shu,     3    (provide) evidence for an ancient Chinese civilization that extended beyond China’s central plains 3,000-5,000 years ago. Sanxingdui demonstrated a civilization that had     4     (it) own customs and rituals (仪式), as well as remarkable innovation.

Sichuan Province and its capital Chengdu are a focal point for     5     discovery and research of ancient Chinese civilizations. So far some of China’s oldest historical relics, providing evidence of ancient Chinese crafts, customs and practices,     6    (find) here. Modern Chengdu and surrounding areas are a melting pot of culture and customs inherited from ancient times: taxi drivers recite Du Fu’s poems; performers show bianlian (face-changing) performance     7     they change masks faster than audiences can follow. Each has its roots in ancient Chinese civilization and demonstrates the strong effect ancient civilization has     8     contemporary Sichuanese culture.

Treasures     9    (discover) in Sichuan province play an important role in tracing the emergence of Chinese civilization. Being     10    (natural) fertile (富饶的), the area attracted early settlers, and from sites such as Sanxingdui, archeologists and historians can discover much about Chinese civilization.