Bush Proposes Measures to Reduce Energy Costs

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I’m Steve Ember with IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

PRESIDENT BUSH: "Millions of American families and small businesses are hurting because of higher gasoline prices. My administration is doing everything we can to make gasoline more affordable."

President Bush, at his news conference at the White House Thursday night, reacting to concerns about energy prices. For now the United States will continue to ask oil-producing countries to produce more. But Mister Bush says Americans must also make better use of existing energy resources and develop new ones.

The president urged help for other nations to improve technology that could reduce worldwide demand for fossil fuels. And he urged Congress to pass his energy plan so he could sign it by summer.

Earlier in the week, Mister Bush proposed ways to reduce the long-term need for imported oil. In his words: "Our dependence on foreign energy is like a foreign tax on the American people." Gasoline currently averages more than two dollars and twenty cents per gallon, or fifty-eight cents a liter.

Mister Bush proposes more refineries to process oil into fuel, and more nuclear power stations. He noted that no new refineries have been built in the United States since the nineteen seventies. There have been no new orders for nuclear power stations either since then.

Mister Bush says former military bases could be used to build oil refineries. He also proposed that the government provide risk insurance for nuclear power operators in case of trouble. Another proposal would increase federal power to approve new centers for liquefied natural gas.

The president also supports a tax credit for buyers of vehicles that use diesel fuel. And he supports oil and gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Opponents worry about harm to the environment.

The Bush administration proposed an energy plan to Congress almost four years ago. The House of Representatives approved legislation on April twenty-first. This week the president called for the Senate to begin work soon on its version of the bill.

Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia visited President Bush this week at his home in Crawford, Texas. The crown prince discussed a Saudi plan to increase oil production. But Saudi foreign affairs adviser Adel al-Jubeir noted that American refineries cannot process much more oil.

On Friday oil prices closed below fifty dollars a barrel for the first time in more than two months. Increased supplies have helped bring down prices from a high of more than fifty-eight dollars a barrel.

A report this week added to concerns about the effects of high energy prices on economic growth. The government says the United States economy expanded at a yearly rate of just over three percent from January through March. The increase was the smallest in two years.

IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English was written by Jerilyn Watson. I’m Steve Ember.

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For Blind Students, College Means Learning to Help Themselves

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I’m Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English Education Report.

We continue our reports for students around the world who want to attend college in the United States. This week, we answer a question from Pakistan. Sajid Iqbal wants to know if any American colleges or universities accept blind students or those with vision problems. He also wants to know if any financial aid is provided.

The World Health Organization says almost forty million people around the world are blind. There are about one million blind people in the United States. The largest and most influential organization of blind people in this country is the National Federation of the Blind. N.F.B. officials say the nation does not have any colleges or universities that serve only blind students. They say the reason for this is that blind people must learn to live among people who can see.

American colleges and universities do accept blind and visually impaired students. And they provide services to help these students succeed. For example, colleges find people who write down what the professors say in class. And they provide technology that can help blind students with their work. However, experts say colleges can best help blind students by making it clear that the students should learn to help themselves.

One blind American student recently made news because he graduated from medical school at the University of Wisconsin. Tim Cordes (pronounced COR-diss) says technology was one of the reasons he succeeded. He used a computer that read into his earpiece what he was typing. He also used a small printer that permitted him to write notes about his patients in the hospital. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.

National Federation of the Blind officials say blind students from other nations do come to the United States to attend college. Some can even get financial aid. The N.F.B. awards about thirty scholarships each year that have no citizenship requirement. The applications for scholarships are closed for next year.

However, information about such aid and other services can be found at its web site, nfb.org. N.F.B. officials say blind students interested in attending college in the United States should communicate with the schools they want to attend. College officials will provide them with the information they need.

This VOA Special English Education Report was written by Nancy Steinbach. I’m Gwen Outen.

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Part 35 of our Foreign Student Series

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May Day in America: Mostly a Time to Celebrate Nature's Labor

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HOST: Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC, in VOA Special English.

(MUSIC)

I'm Doug Johnson. On our show this week:

Music by The Shins …

A question from a listener about May Day ...

And a report about the recent anniversary of a famous fast-food company.

McDonald’s Anniversary

Recognizable in any language: a McDonald's in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (VOA Photo - Laurie Kassman)

What business that began with one eating place in the American Midwest now has thirty thousand fast-food restaurants all over the world? The answer is McDonald’s, which celebrated its fiftieth anniversary earlier this month. Barbara Klein has more.

BARBARA KLEIN: Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald’s in Des Plaines, Illinois, near Chicago, on April fifteenth, nineteen fifty-five. Before starting McDonald’s, Mister Kroc sold machines that mixed milk and ice cream to make a popular drink called a milkshake. The new restaurant sold hamburgers and fried potatoes called French fries also. McDonald’s workers prepared this food very quickly. People waited only a few minutes for their food.

That first McDonald’s was torn down in nineteen eighty-four. The company built a copy of it in the same place to serve as a McDonald’s Museum. It contains the equipment used to prepare food during the restaurant’s first days of operation.

On the bottom floor of the museum, visitors can see early advertisements, other McDonald’s objects and a short movie about the company. The museum does not sell food, however. Visitors can go across the street to eat at a modern McDonald’s.

Today, thirty thousand McDonald’s restaurants in more than one hundred countries serve food to almost fifty million people each day. But McDonald’s has many critics. They say the company pays its workers too little. They also say the restaurants serve food that is not healthy because it contains too much fat and sugar.

Last year, an American filmmaker ate nothing but McDonald’s food for one month. He made a movie about his experience called “Super Size Me”. Doctors who examined the young man found that eating McDonald’s food had damaged his health. The food caused weight gain, increased blood pressure and cholesterol and damage to his liver.

After the movie’s release, McDonald’s announced that it would stop selling extremely large meals. During its fifty years, McDonald’s has added more kinds of foods. It still sells milkshakes, French fries and hamburgers. But it has added salads, chicken sandwiches, yogurt, and breakfast food.

May Day

HOST: Now it is time for a listener question. Ngoc Toan of Vietnam asks about the meaning of May Day in the United States.

This Sunday, May first, is May Day. Many countries honor workers and the labor movement on May Day. But the United States celebrates Labor Day on the first Monday in September. May Day events in America are mostly a celebration of nature.

May Day is one of the oldest holidays around the world. Experts say many ancient peoples chose May first to celebrate the re-birth of nature in springtime. The Romans held a festival of flowers on the first day of May. Their celebrations became tradition in Britain, Ireland and Scotland. May Day celebrated the beauty of spring after a long, cold winter.

In Ireland and Scotland, May Day was one of the most important holidays of the year. On May first, people gathered flowers before sunrise. They sang and danced as they returned home. Then they decorated their houses with the flowers.

In England, villagers picked flowers and then gathered in the center of town. They chose a young woman as May Queen. She sat in a special area surrounded by flowers. The people performed for her. They sang, held competitions, sports events and parades. They placed flowers on a tall piece of wood called a Maypole. They placed the pole in the ground and danced around it.

In early America, Puritan settlers from England did not approve of such activities. So they did not celebrate May Day. But settlers from other countries in Europe brought May Day traditions to America.

In some parts of the country, children still dance around a Maypole. They collect flowers and give them to friends and family members.

Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania has been holding May Day celebrations since nineteen hundred. Students at the all-female college gather flowers early in the morning. They attach long colorful pieces of cloth to the top of a Maypole. They dance around the Maypole holding the ribbons. Later in the day, the students hold a more modern event to celebrate freedom and equality for women. They release thousands of flower petals into the air.

The Shins

(Photo - theshins.com)

An American band called The Shins has created its own kind of pop rock music influenced by the songs of the nineteen sixties.

The four young men in the group are from the state of New Mexico. They have been together since nineteen ninety-seven. Faith Lapidus has more.

FAITH LAPIDUS: The Shins have had two successful record albums. This song is from their album “Chutes Too Narrow.” It is called “So Says I.”

(MUSIC)

The band mixes independent rock with popular music to make its own kind of sound. This song mixes country music and modern pop. It is called “Gone for Good”.

(MUSIC)

The members of the group now live in Portland, Oregon. They are performing around the United States through most of this year.

The Shins became more popular after their music was in a recent movie called “Garden State.” In the movie, two of the characters listen to the band’s music in a hospital waiting room. We leave you now with that song, “Caring is Creepy”.

(MUSIC)

HOST: I'm Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program today.

This show was written by Ed Stautberg, Nancy Steinbach and Caty Weaver, who was also our producer. The audio engineer was Carl Starling.

Send your questions about American life to mosaic@voanews.com. Please include your full name and mailing address. Or write to American Mosaic, VOA Special English, Washington, D.C., two-zero-two-three-seven, U.S.A.

Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOA’s radio magazine in Special English.

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Stocks: Proposed Deal Aims to Ready N.Y.S.E. for Electronic Future

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I’m Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English Economics Report.

In an age of electronic trading, most activity on the world's biggest stock market still takes place on a noisy trading floor. The New York Stock Exchange uses a system of traders called specialists to bring together buyers and sellers.

The exchange has used this system for over two centuries. John Thain is the chief executive officer. He says the exchange must do more to compete in what he calls a "high-speed electronically connected world."

Last week Mister Thain announced an agreement to combine the New York Exchange with Archipelago Holdings. Archipelago was one of the first companies to create an electronic trading system. Today, Archipelago carries out one-fourth of the trades on the NASDAQ, the second largest stock exchange in the United States.

Under the proposed deal, the New York Stock Exchange would use two systems: one based on people, the other on computers. Archipelago shareholders would own thirty percent of a combined company called the N.Y.S.E. Group. The N.Y.S.E. Group would be a publicly traded company. Currently, the New York Stock Exchange operates as a non-profit corporation.

Members of the exchange would own seventy percent of the new company. Members are individuals or companies that own seats on the exchange. The deal requires approval by these members and by shareholders in Archipelago. The Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington must also agree.

Not everyone likes the proposal. Investor Kenneth Langone served on the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange. He has criticized the continued use of specialists. But he says the plan does not provide enough value for exchange members. Mister Langone has organized a group to consider moves such as a competing offer.

Only a few years ago, the current trading system seemed unlikely to change. At that time, Richard Grasso headed the exchange. He supported the use of specialists. But Mister Grasso was forced out of his job in September of two thousand three in a dispute over his pay.

His replacement, John Thain, came to the Big Board from the Goldman Sachs Group. That investment bank has been advising both the exchange and Archipelago in their merger negotiations. Goldman is also a member of the exchange and a shareholder in Archipelago.

This VOA Special English Economics Report was written by Mario Ritter. I'm Gwen Outen.

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The American Civil War: Battle of Vicksburg Splits the Southern Confederacy

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(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a program in Special English.

I'm Harry Monroe. Today, Kay Gallant and I continue the story of America's Civil War and the man who led the Union during the war, Abraham Lincoln.

VOICE TWO:

In November, eighteen-sixty-three, President Lincoln traveled to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He spoke at the opening of a military cemetery. He felt very tired by the time he got back to Washington. Doctors thought he had a cold. Later, they said he had a weak form of smallpox.

The president remained in bed. Few visitors could see him. There was a danger the smallpox could spread.

Lincoln got better after a few weeks. He began working on his yearly message to Congress. After two-and-a-half years of war, he had good news to report. Union armies had gained two important victories at about the same time.

VOICE ONE:

One was the battle of Gettysburg. Union forces led by General
George meade had defeated Confederate forces led by General Robert E. Lee. They pushed Lee back into Virginia. It was the last Confederate invasion of the North.

The day after the battle of Gettysburg, Union forces defeated Confederate forces at Vicksburg, Mississippi. This victory gave them control of the Mississippi River. And it split the states of the Confederacy.

VOICE TWO:

Ulysses S. Grant

Union General Ulysses Grant had been trying to seize Vicksburg for several months. It was not easy.

Vicksburg lay on the east side of the Mississippi River. It was built high above the water on a rocky cliff. As the river flowed past Vicksburg, it turned in sharply at the base of the cliff and then continued on to the gulf of Mexico.

The Confederates had placed cannon all along the sharp turn in the river. Enemy boats sailing past made easy targets.

VOICE ONE:

General Grant began the campaign for Vicksburg in late eighteen-sixty-two. His army was west of the Mississippi River. He needed to get to the other side to attack the city.

First, Grant planned to cross the river into northern Mississippi state. Then he would March south to Vicksburg. He crossed the river. But Confederate forces destroyed his transportation and supply lines. He withdrew. Early in eighteen-sixty-three, he tried again.

VOICE TWO:

This time, he planned to sail his men past Vicksburg. They would cross the river a little downstream, turn and attack.

Grant moved forty-thousand men to a point ten kilometers from Vicksburg. He told the men to put down their guns and take up digging tools. They would build a canal to carry them past the turn in the river, past the Confederate cannon.

VOICE ONE:

For weeks, the Union soldiers worked on the canal. They dug through mud and wet clay. Many died of disease. After more than a month of digging, engineers decided that the canal would not work. Grant ordered the men to build another canal. Then another. They did not work, either.

By this time, the Union soldiers had become experts at digging canals. One of them said: "As soon as the canals at Vicksburg are finished, we are going to cut a canal across the upper part of Florida. We will cut that state off from the Confederacy, and give it to the alligators!"

VOICE TWO:

Finally, in April, eighteen-sixty-three, Grant gave up all ideas of getting past Vicksburg without a fight. He decided to March most of his men down the west side of the river to a steamboat landing thirty kilometers below Vicksburg. He would send his navy boats past the city at night and hope for the best.

It took three weeks for Grant's men to reach the steamboat landing. The roads were very rough. In many places, they were covered with water. Engineers had to cut trees and cover the muddy roads with logs so wagons would not sink. They had to build bridges over the many streams.

VOICE ONE:

On the night of April sixteenth, the Union navy made its run past Vicksburg. Eight gunboats and three empty troop boats floated down the dark river. Their engines were silent.

The Confederates, however, had built fires along the river. They saw the Union boats and began to shoot. They hit most of the boats, but destroyed only one. The damaged boats reached safety below the city.

On the last day of April, the Union troop boats began carrying soldiers to the east side of the river. About twenty-three-thousand men crossed. Right away, they faced a force of eight-thousand Confederate soldiers. They drove the Confederates back.

VOICE TWO:

Grant then ordered the rest of his army to cross to the east side of the river. Some of his officers protested. They said it would be impossible to get supplies to a large army east of the river.

Grant was not worried about supplies. He said the men should bring only coffee, hard bread, and salt. Anything else could be taken from the farmers of Mississippi. Their homes, he said, were full of food.

VOICE ONE:

Grant decided not to throw his men against the strong defenses around Vicksburg immediately. Instead, he marched them east toward Jackson, the state capital.

Jackson was the supply base for the Confederate army defending Vicksburg. Grant wanted to cut the supply lines between the two cities. He also wanted to prevent the soldiers in Jackson from joining the soldiers in Vicksburg.

Grant captured Jackson easily. He left some troops to destroy enemy supplies. He took the remaining troops and turned back toward Vicksburg.

VOICE TWO:

Grant attacked Vicksburg several times. Each time, his troops were thrown back. The city's defenses were too strong. Grant then decided to surround the city and wait until its food was gone. That, he thought, would make the Confederates surrender.

Grant closed in with men and artillery. As one soldier wrote: "The circle of Union forces around the city was so tight that a cat could not have crept out without being discovered. "

Nothing could get out. Nothing could get in.

Weeks passed. The Union army shelled the city. The Confederate army answered from time to time. Food supplies dropped. There was little to eat except corn bread and the meat of mules. Some people caught rats and ate them.

VOICE ONE:

Finally, the Confederate commander, General John Pemberton, decided the situation was hopeless. He sent word to Grant that he was ready to discuss surrender.

The two commanders met under a white flag of truce. Grant demanded unconditional surrender. Pemberton rejected the demand.

Pemberton's men were to be prisoners. That was a fact. But Pemberton wanted them released immediately on parole. He told Grant that his men would promise to stay out of the war if permitted to return to their homes. If not, he said, they would continue to fight.

VOICE TWO:

Grant agreed to let the Confederate soldiers go home. He and Pemberton signed the surrender agreement on July fourth. The siege of Vicksburg had lasted forty-seven days.

Never had a Union army won such a victory. Grant had taken thirty-thousand Confederate soldiers out of the war. He had captured sixty-thousand guns and one-hundred-seventy cannon.

These were serious losses for the Confederacy. It already was low on manpower and weapons. But an even greater loss was the control of the Mississippi River. With Vicksburg in Union hands, the North could control the whole length of the river. And the confederacy was split badly.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

You have been listening to the Special English program, THE MAKING OF A NATION. Your narrators were Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe. Our program was written by Frank Beardsley.

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April 27, 2005 - Compounding in English

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AA: I'm Avi Arditti. Rosanne Skirble is away, but joining me from Los Angeles is English teacher Lida Baker to explain our topic on Wordmaster this week. It's a feature of the language called compounding.

LIDA BAKER: "Compounding is when we take two words in English and we put them together to make a brand-new word. For example, you can take the word race and the word car and you can put it together and you have a race car. But interestingly you can also combine those two words together in the opposite order, car plus race. And then you have ... "

AA: "Car race."

LIDA BAKER: "Car race, which is a kind of ... "

AA: "Race."

LIDA BAKER: "Isn't that interesting? So a race car is a kind of car and a car race is a kind of race. One of the rules, I guess, of the meaning of compounds in English is that the core meaning is the word on the right."

AA: "So what are some other examples?"

LIDA BAKER: "Well, there are all kinds of compounds in English. The most common ones are when we combine two nouns -- so race car, housekeeper. One of the things that's confusing about compounds is the spelling, because sometimes it's written as two words; for example, race car. Sometimes it's written as one word; for example, housekeeper. And sometimes it's written with a hyphen. I actually would have to check this myself, but I think the word baby-sitter is written with a hyphen.

"Now the point is, even native speakers of English don't always know how to spell compounds and they have to consult a dictionary. So I would give my students exactly the same advice. "Now let's move away from the written language and talk about the spoken language. There is a unique feature of compounds which is that the first word is normally the one -- well, always the one that is stressed. So notice, for example, that we say RACE car, HOUSE keeper, BLACK bird, MAKE up, BABY sitter. You see how the first -- we've talked on this program about word stress before. In a compound the first word is the one that gets stressed, and that's one of the things that actually identities it as a compound. What if you have, for example -- well, where does the president of the United States live?"

AA: "In the White House."

LIDA BAKER: "In the WHITE House, and it's stressed on the first word. But I live in a white HOUSE. So there's a difference between a compound which is a unit that has a meaning of its own, like White House, which is the residence of the president of the United States, as opposed to a house that happens to be white. Another famous example of that is blackbird, which is a specific type of bird, and a black bird as opposed to a blue bird or a red bird, you see?

AA: "Uh-huh."

LIDA BAKER: "So what we have to do in the classroom -- first of all, explain to students what I just explained to you, and then do what we call ear training. I can propose a couple of activities that teachers can do that can help students to learn compounds. One of them is a simple matching activity where you have two columns. And what the students have to do is take a word from the first column and match it with a word in the second column and create the compound and then practice saying it correctly. So, a simple matching activity.

"But there's another activity that is really fun, and that is to take these -- you know how we were talking about the difference between 'White House' and 'white house' or 'blackbird' and 'black bird'? You take those phrases and you try to create -- this is kind of for advanced students -- but try to make one sentence that contains both of those. So as an example: 'I saw a white house on my way to the White House?' Can you hear the difference?"

AA: "Uh-huh."

LIDA BAKER: "Or I saw a black bird, but I'm not sure if it's a blackbird.' I've done this and it's a lot of fun. You see students, you know, they're pounding on the desk trying to figure out where the stressed word is and so on."

AA: Lida Baker is working on a new listening book for English learners, and she teaches in the American Language Center at the University of California, Los Angeles.

That's all for Wordmaster this week. Our e-mail address is word@voanews.com. And all of our segments can be found online at voanews.com/wordmaster. I'm Avi Arditti.

MUSIC: "Blackbird"/Beatles

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Polio: How an Ancient Disease Met a Modern Prevention

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(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in VOA Special English. I’m Faith Lapidus.

VOICE TWO:

Dr. Jonas Salk (Photo - Yousuf Karsh 1956/National Gallery of Australia)

And I’m Bob Doughty. This week, we remember the discovery of the first effective protection against the disease polio. We also talk about the scientists who made it possible.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Fifty years ago, American media reported a major and welcome announcement. They said scientists had created a medicine to protect people against polio. The medicine was described as safe, powerful and effective. The announcement was made on April twelfth, nineteen fifty-five. The date is now fixed in medical history.

Today, international efforts have greatly reduced cases of polio around the world. The World Health Organization supports a campaign to end the health threat from the disease by this year. A worldwide effort called the Global Polio Eradication Initiative is working toward this goal.

VOICE TWO:

About three hundred fifty thousand polio cases were reported in one hundred twenty-five countries in nineteen eighty-eight. Since then, the number of cases has been cut by ninety-nine percent.

But some nations have not stopped the spread of the disease. The W-H-O says heavily populated countries like India and Nigeria still report cases. Polio remains a problem in other countries like Afghanistan, Egypt, Niger and Pakistan.

Doctors say most patients suffer only signs of a cold or mild intestinal problem. Yet polio has been one of the most frightening diseases in history. People with the most severe cases died, sometimes quickly. Others were left unable to walk or breathe on their own. There was no cure or truly effective treatment.

In recent years, some people who were infected long ago have developed new pain and weakness. The problem is called post-polio syndrome.

VOICE ONE:

Polio was first recorded in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. A virus causes the disease. It attacks the muscles and nervous system. The sickness spreads from person to person. It is carried in food, water and human waste.

Scientists first identified the virus in nineteen oh-eight. But they could not stop the sickness from spreading. For example, polio killed six thousand people in the United States in nineteen sixteen. Twenty-seven thousand other Americans suffered permanent damage.

For years, polio remained a health threat. Many victims were children and young adults. Families attempted all kinds of methods to protect their children. But still the sickness kept spreading. This was especially true during hot summers. In the summer of nineteen fifty-two, more than fifty-seven thousand Americans were infected.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Antibiotic medicines do not destroy viruses. Only bacteria can be killed that way. Medicines that kill viruses also kill healthy cells. That is why it was necessary for scientists to prevent a viral infection instead of attempting to treat it.

Only three vaccines were used for viral sicknesses until the nineteen forties. A vaccine works by placing a small amount of weakened virus in the body. This helped the body develop substances in the blood that can destroy the disease if it appears. These substances are called antibodies.

VOICE ONE:

Several research scientists were working to develop a treatment for polio after World War Two. But Jonas Salk wanted to create a protective medicine. He believed a vaccine made from a killed virus could kill the polio virus. However, other researchers said his method would never succeed.

Doctor Salk did not listen. He gathered a team of experts at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in the state of Pennsylvania. They worked to produce a substance that could kill a live poliovirus.

VOICE TWO:

Millions of Americans provided money for the research. Adults and children would give their money to the Infantile Paralysis Foundation. Today, the group is called the March of Dimes.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt helped start the Foundation in the late nineteen thirties. Mister Roosevelt became sick with polio when he was thirty-nine years old. He never walked again without help.

The money from Americans helped Doctor Salk’s team create antibodies that would kill the virus. In nineteen fifty-two, the team identified three major kinds of polio virus. That meant creating a vaccine that would kill all three. The team also had to discover how to grow the viruses.

VOICE ONE:

In the nineteen thirties, scientists used tissue from the backbones of monkeys to grow the virus. The tissue was called neural tissue. However, vaccines with the virus grown in neural tissue gave people the disease.

A young man named Julius Youngner worked with Doctor Salk to develop a way to grow the virus in non-neural tissue. Professor Youngner decided to use tissue from the kidneys of monkeys.

He did so by cutting up the outer cover of this organ. At first, it was hard for him to grow the cells. They became thick in test tubes. But then he added a substance called trypsin. The trypsin made the tissue break into separate cells.

Julius Youngner developed ways to grow enough of the virus needed to produce a vaccine. Other scientists say he invented modern cell cultures. But Professor Youngner says the real heroes were the monkeys. Today, he is the only survivor of Doctor Salk’s main research team.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Other researchers did not agree that the killed virus made the most effective vaccine. One of them was Albert Sabin. He disagreed with the way Doctor Salk’s team was building antibodies to fight polio. Doctor Sabin wanted to use a weakened live polio virus to build disease antibodies.

Doctor Sabin attempted to prevent the test of the Salk polio vaccine. But the attempt failed. A large trial of the Salk vaccine began in nineteen fifty-four. The results showed that polio rates decreased greatly in people who had been vaccinated. The next April, the medicine was declared safe and effective.

VOICE ONE:

The Salk polio vaccine was given with a needle, through the skin. Americans often call such an injection a shot. American parents hurried to get their children protected. Hundreds of thousands of Europeans also got shots. That caused people to say that the Salk vaccine was the shot felt ‘round the world.

Now it was time for Doctor Sabin to gain fame in the struggle against polio. In nineteen fifty-seven, he developed a vaccine containing live poliovirus. People could take his oral polio vaccine by mouth. It was easier to protect great numbers of people with the Sabin vaccine than with the Salk vaccine.

VOICE TWO:

One hundred million children in Europe received the Sabin oral polio vaccine in nineteen-sixty. His vaccine was given to one hundred million Americans of all ages from nineteen sixty-two through nineteen sixty-four.

Today, the United States Department of Health and Human Services no longer advises the oral polio vaccine. Instead, officials strongly advise that shots be given to babies and young children. Most adult Americans do not need the vaccine.

This month, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., has organized a show called “Whatever Happened to Polio?” The name offers evidence that the disease is rare in much of the world.

VOICE ONE:

Yet polio keeps returning. For example, it disappeared in the western half of the world by the end of the twentieth century. Then, in two thousand one, tests confirmed that several children in the Dominican Republic and Haiti had become infected.

Strong danger from polio still exists in parts of Africa. This month, a coalition of health agencies is working to protect millions of children there. Earlier in the year, United Nations agencies and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative reached up to ninety five million children with the polio vaccine.

VOICE TWO:

An American doctor remembers seeing many children infected with polio at a hospital during the nineteen fifties. Their whole bodies except their heads were inside tanks called iron lungs. The devices helped them to breathe. Some never left the iron lungs.

In the words of the doctor, controlling polio is more than worth the effort.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

This program was written by Jerilyn Watson. Our producer was Cynthia Kirk. I’m Faith Lapidus.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Bob Doughty. Join us again next week for SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

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Audience Mail: A Maize Mystery for AGRICULTURE REPORT

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I’m Gwen Out with the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.

A listener in Vietnam has a question about corn breeding. Ho Lan Phuong has read about "pure-line development" and "broad-line development." She wants to know the difference.

Since ancient times, farmers have chosen the best examples from each crop to provide seed for the next year. This method is called mass selection. It may be what our listener has seen described as broad-line development. Mass selection produces plants with similar genetic qualities over time.

The pure-line method of breeding is similar. But it is more systematic. In pure-line breeding, the best plants are chosen from a crop that has many different genetic qualities.

The seeds from these plants are grown. Then the best plants are chosen from the new crop. This process can go on for many years, until the seeds produce plants with measurable similarities and desirable qualities. Seed companies may use this method to produce seed for some crops.

But the pure-line method is not often used with widely traded crops. Today major crops like corn or wheat are developed as hybrids.

About one hundred years ago, a scientist in the United States, G.H. Shull, made important discoveries about corn hybrids.

He mated corn with itself. Corn does not normally fertilize itself in nature. If corn is inbred, the seeds will produce a plant that clearly shows the qualities of the parent. But this inbreeding does not produce a strong plant.

Shull found that if he mated two inbred corn plants, they would produce a strong line with the good qualities of the parent plants. This is called crossbreeding.

Researchers soon recognized that they could crossbreed four inbred lines of corn. This "double cross" results in stronger corn with the best qualities of the parent plants. This is the way most hybrid corn is developed.

Modern hybrid corn produces much more grain than its ancestors. But success can create its own problems. For example, there is very little genetic difference in the corn grown across the United States. Experts estimate that current hybrids use less than five percent of the genetic diversity that exists.

There is a project called Germplasm Enhancement of Maize, or GEM. It is a cooperative effort to increase the genetic diversity in corn. The project involves the Department of Agriculture, sixteen universities and twenty international companies.

This VOA Special English Agriculture Report was written by Mario Ritter. I'm Gwen Outen.

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Indiana Dunes: Beautiful Sand Hills and Wildlife in the Midwest

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VOICE ONE:

This is Faith Lapidus.

VOICE TWO:

And this is Steve Ember with the VOA Special English program, EXPLORATIONS. Today we visit the Indiana Dunes. These hills of sand are near Chicago, Illinois. They rise on the shores of Lake Michigan, one of America’s five Great Lakes.

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VOICE ONE:

Indiana Dunes

More than two million people visit the sand hills in the middle western state of Indiana each year. The winds along Lake Michigan created some of these dunes in ancient times. Other dunes may be building right now. The winds create dunes when they drop loose sand onto land. Some dunes look partly round. Others take the form of long, narrow hills.

Visitors from all over the world explore the area near the Indiana Dunes. They swim and sail on the lake. They watch birds in the wetlands. They study plant life in the rich forests of oak and maple trees.

The smooth sands of the dunes and lakeshore make a clear musical sound when people walk on them. Some of these sounds can be heard ten meters away. Visitors often say that the sand dunes “sing.”

VOICE TWO:

The Indiana state government and the federal government control more than six thousand hectares of land along the lake. They operate parks with visitors’ areas and scientific research stations. Supervision by these agencies guarantees that the land will always belong to the public. Laws protect the plants, animals, and natural and historical points of interest.

During the twentieth century, many people worked hard to save the dunes from development for industrial and port uses. This was not easy. The land along that area of Lake Michigan is extremely valuable. Some of the land provides important lake ports. Industries and Indiana’s natural-gas company also operate along the lake.

VOICE ONE:

In the early nineteen fifties, some companies were removing five tons of sand each day from the dunes. Scientists of the Indiana Geological Survey investigated the sand supply in nineteen fifty-two. They said that the dunes would be gone in fifty to one hundred years if companies continued to remove sand at that rate. The wind and waves of Lake Michigan created the dunes over thousands of years. Yet people could destroy the dunes in a lifetime.

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VOICE TWO:

The federal government established the National Park Service in nineteen sixteen. A Chicago businessman named Stephen Mather was its first director. Mister Mather created many national parks. He wanted the Indiana dunes to be a national park, too. However, the United States had entered World War One in nineteen seventeen. Congress was not thinking about creating parks. It was thinking about soldiers and military supplies.

Public support for a protected dunes park continued to grow, however. In nineteen twenty-three, Indiana passed a bill providing tax money to buy property along the lake from its private owners. In nineteen twenty-six, the Indiana Dunes State Park opened. It contained more than eight hundred hectares of land.

VOICE ONE:

Area citizens, scientists and visitors were pleased with the state park. But they did not feel satisfied. They wanted much more land along the lake protected from being used for more factories and industrial ports. Activist Dorothy Buell led the campaign for a national park in the dunes. She formed the Save the Dunes Council in nineteen fifty-two.

Indiana’s representatives in the United States Senate opposed the proposed park. They said ports on the lake would provide more jobs for local workers than a national park. Yet the Save the Dunes Council found a powerful friend in United States Senator Paul Douglas. He represented the nearby state of Illinois. Senator Douglas loved the dunes. Every year he would introduce a bill to create an Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. But every year the bill failed to pass.

VOICE TWO:

In nineteen sixty-six, people who wanted more development finally reached a compromise with people who wanted a national park. Congress first passed a bill to develop more ports. It also created the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. More land was added to the park in later legislation. Today more than six thousand hectares of the federal Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore also include the Indiana Dunes State Park.

VOICE ONE:

The Save the Dunes Council has been involved in many other battles. It has successfully fought a number of threats. These include the use of vehicles in the park. Sand-mining. An airport on the lake. And a nuclear power center near the park.

The council has also pressed for stronger enforcement of air and water pollution control laws in the industrial areas near the park.

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VOICE TWO:

A modern federal road follows a walking path in the dunes called the Beach Trail. Long ago, this trail was a path between two forts. Settlers built the forts to provide protection against attacks by native Indian tribes. These forts became Chicago, Illinois, and Detroit, Michigan.

In eighteen twenty-two, a trader from the state of Michigan settled in the Indiana Dunes. This man, Joseph Bailly, opened a store and raised a family near Lake Michigan. He exchanged warm blankets and guns for the animal furs supplied by Indians and travelers.

At first, Mister Bailly and his family lived in a small wood home. The trader was building a bigger house when he died. The National Park Service has repaired the outside of this large white home.

VOICE ONE:

Later, a student from the University of Chicago brought scientific knowledge to the dunes. Henry Chandler Cowles received money from the university to study landforms and plant fossils from the time when ice covered much of the world. In eighteen ninety-six, Mister Cowles decided the Indiana dunes would be an excellent place for his research.

Mister Cowles’ studies showed how plant communities could make important changes in land. His work demonstrated how groups of plants could create conditions for a sand dune to become a living forest. He became a well-known professor and researcher. The work of Henry Chandler Cowles in the Indiana Dunes helped spread the science of ecology throughout the world.

VOICE TWO:

Other scientists have explained how the sand hills formed. They say a huge thick river of ice helped create the Indiana dunes. Thousands of years ago this glacier moved over what is now central Indiana. As the glacier moved, heavy ice crushed rocks into very small pieces. Over time, part of the glacier became a body of water called Lake Chicago, an early version of Lake Michigan. The melting glacier dropped the sand it had created around the lake. The sands of the present-day Lake Michigan are always moving. The winds and waves of the lake carry sand to the surrounding land.

Strong winds lift the sand and drop it on the land below. This process starts building new dunes.

VOICE ONE:

Over time, plant life develops on these sand hills. For example, the cottonwood tree is usually first to grow on a new dune. Then the winds dig a hole in the sand. The winds use loose sand from the hole to create a large dune that moves. Such a dune can damage or destroy anything in its way. But cottonwood trees can help. The trees grow roots along their trunks as sand buries them. The cottonwood roots help hold the dune in place.

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VOICE TWO:

A dune called Mount Baldy guards the northern end of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Beautiful trees encircle its lower parts. Thousands of people climb the thirty-eight meters to the top of Mount Baldy each year. But getting there can be difficult. Climbers discover that their footsteps up the tall hill of sand often cause them to fall back again.

Local people tell about a mysterious woman who once lived in a small house not far from Mount Baldy. Alice Marble Gray moved to the Dunes from Chicago at age thirty-five. Alice shocked people by swimming in Lake Michigan without a swimming suit. Fishermen compared her to the Roman goddess Diana. So began the traditional story of Diana of the Dunes.

VOICE ONE:

This legend says Diana fell in love with a man who treated her badly. She died in nineteen twenty-five. Health officials said her body showed evidence of beatings. As the years passed, people have claimed that they sometimes see her swimming in the lake. They say that in the moonlight, you can still see Diana running along the sands of the Indiana Dunes.

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VOICE TWO:

This program was written by Jerilyn Watson. It was produced by Mario Ritter. I’m Steve Ember.

VOICE ONE:

And I’m Faith Lapidus. Join us again next week for another EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English.

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Countries in the Americas Observe Vaccination Week

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I’m Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English Health Report.

Officials hope to vaccinate millions of children and adults.

This is Vaccination Week in the Americas. The Pan American Health Organization and officials from the United States, Mexico and Canada launched the campaign Monday. Public health officials say they hope to reach forty-four million children and adults throughout North, Central and South America.

The children will be vaccinated against measles, polio, rubella and other diseases that can be prevented. Some countries will make special efforts to vaccinate native populations and people in border areas with limited health care.

Many countries are vaccinating women who may become pregnant. And some countries also hope to vaccinate older people. Each country sets its own goals.

Vaccination Week is the largest such campaign in the Americas. It began in the Andean area of South America two years ago. Later, health ministers of all the other countries in the Americas agreed to join the effort.

Last year, Pan American health officials say, countries in Latin America and the Caribbean vaccinated almost forty-four million people, mostly children. The United States and Canada helped by informing people about the importance of vaccinations.

Officials say vaccines have greatly reduced child deaths and disability caused by preventable diseases in the Americas. This month marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Salk vaccine against polio. Today the Americas have been declared polio-free. Smallpox has been ended worldwide. And there has been progress against measles. Health officials in the Americas are also working to end another disease, rubella, through vaccination.

As part of Vaccination Week, the United States is observing National Infants Immunization Week. Health officials are urging parents to get their babies vaccinated.

Eleven thousand babies are born each day in the United States. Public health officials say children should be vaccinated against twelve diseases before age two. But they say more than twenty percent of two-year-olds in the United States are not fully protected against these preventable diseases.

All thirty-five countries in North, Central and South America are members of the Pan American Health Organization. It is based in Washington. It was established in nineteen oh two and represents the Americas in the World Health Organization.

This VOA Special English Health Report was written by Cynthia Kirk. I'm Gwen Outen.

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Plumpy'nut Aids Fight Against Hunger

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I'm Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English Development Report.

Children eating Plumpy'nut.

Nutriset is a food company in France that makes all its products for humanitarian aid programs. One of the most popular products for use in emergencies is a sweet spread. It is made with peanuts, sugar, fats, minerals and vitamins. It is called Plumpy’nut.

The American group Save the Children is using it to help fight hunger among refugees from the violence in the Darfur area of Sudan. The Wall Street Journal reported that so far, workers have given out more than three hundred metric tons of Plumpy'nut Aid officials told the newspaper that the product has helped cut malnutrition rates in western Sudan in half.

Plumpy'nut can be given to families without the need to go to feeding centers. It comes ready to eat. It does not have to be mixed with water, the way dry milk does. Clean drinking water is often in short supply in crisis situations.

The French product is also being used to treat children in Malawi, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. And Plumpy’nut was used to help feed victims of the tsunami waves in the Indian Ocean in December.

Nutriset says Plumpy'nut can stay fresh for two years. Individual servings are ninety-two grams. The company says Plumpy'nut is similar in nutritional value to the treatment known as therapeutic milk f-one-hundred.

Normally, some children get a bad reaction to peanuts or other foods. But research noted on the Nutriset Web site says allergic reactions may be suppressed in undernourished children.

Michel Lescanne started Nutriset in nineteen eighty-six to make food for humanitarian aid. The company has a small factory in Malaunay, France. Nutriset also makes products like dry milk that are traditionally used to fight hunger.

In times of crisis, the company will set up emergency operations twenty-four hours a day.

Nutriset says it reinvests its profits into research and development. The company works directly with United Nations agencies and other organizations. Its products are not marketed through businesses. But Nutriset does want to organize a system of independent local production of Plumpy'nut.

The company is on the Web at nutriset.org. That's n-u-t-r-i-s-e-t dot o-r-g.

And Internet users can learn more about development news at voaspecialenglish.com.

This VOA Special English Development Report was written by Jill Moss. I'm Gwen Outen.

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Mary Kay: One of America's Most Influential Women

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VOICE ONE:

I’m Mary Tillotson.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Steve Ember with the VOA Special English program PEOPLE IN AMERICA. This week, we tell about one of the most successful American businesswomen. Mary Kay started a company in nineteen sixty-three with a five thousand dollar investment. Today, Mary Kay Cosmetics is an international company worth thousands of millions of dollars.

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VOICE ONE:

Mary Kathlyn Wagner was born in the state of Texas in nineteen eighteen. For much of her childhood, she cared for her sick father while her mother worked long hours at a public eating place. Mary Kay married Ben Rogers when she was seventeen years old. They had three children before he left home to serve in World War Two. When he returned, their marriage ended. Mary Kay looked for a job so she could support her children.

Mary Kay began selling different kinds of products. At first, she sold books. Later, she visited peoples’ homes to show how home care products such as cleaning fluids and equipment helped ease housework.

One night, Mary Kay was showing these products at the home of Ova Heath Spoonemore. Later in the evening, Missus Spoonemore began giving her guests some home made skin care products. The products were developed by her father, J.W. Heath, in Arkansas. Mary Kay tried the skin care products and found they made her skin smooth.

VOICE TWO:

Mary Kay was successful selling home care products. Her supervisors praised her work. But they never increased her earnings. She left the company after a man she trained was given a more important job than she had.

Mary Kay said later that she learned from this experience. It taught her that men did not believe that a woman could succeed in business. She decided to prove them wrong. So she bought the rights to Mister Heath’s skin care products and started her own company. She paid five hundred dollars for the legal rights to the products.

VOICE ONE:

The Mary Kay Cosmetics company began operating in Dallas, Texas, in nineteen sixty-three. Mary Kay’s twenty-year-old son Richard was the company’s financial official. The idea was to sell skin care products through demonstrations in homes and offices. Nine sales representatives were chosen to sell the products.

The sales representatives were independent workers. They bought products like soaps and skin softening liquids from the company and sold them at higher prices to friends, family members and other individuals. Mary Kay decided that each representative who brought other sales women into the company would receive part of the new person’s earnings. That way, experienced sales representatives would be willing to help train new ones.

Mary Kay told the women who worked for her that to be successful in life a person should put God first, family second and work third. She said women must discover how to be good wives and mothers while at the same time learning how to succeed in work.

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VOICE TWO:

Two years later, in nineteen sixty-five, the company was selling almost one million dollars worth of products. Mary Kay once said that success came fast because she did not have any time to waste. She was already forty-five years old when she started the company. She said a woman needs money fast as she gets older!

Now Mary Kay Cosmetics is the largest direct seller of skin care products in the United States. It develops and tests many skin care and beauty products for the face, body, hair and nails -- many more than it started selling in nineteen sixty-three. Today, Mary Kay Cosmetics has sales of more than one thousand million dollars. It has more than eight hundred thousand sales representatives in thirty-seven countries around the world. You can find Mary Kay products and company sales representatives in Argentina, Brunei, the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan and Singapore.

VOICE ONE:

Every year since nineteen sixty-five, Mary Kay Cosmetics has held a yearly conference in Dallas for its sales representatives. The first one took place in one large room. Mary Kay cooked food for two hundred people and served it on paper plates.

As the company grew, so did the conference. Now, more than thirty-five thousand sales representatives and company officials pay to attend education meetings at the yearly conference. A special event at the three-day conference is Awards Night. That is when prizes are given to those representatives with the most sales for the year. Awards Night also includes a show in which famous singers and dancers perform.

The Awards Night winners receive special paid holidays, jewels, furs, and pink Cadillac automobiles. In Germany, winners receive a pink Mercedes Benz, and in Taiwan they are given a pink Toyota. By nineteen ninety-four, seven thousand cars had been given to sales representatives. The cars are pink because Mary Kay products come in pink containers. Mary Kay liked that color.

VOICE TWO:

Mary Kay believed that recognizing good work is the best way to increase a company’s sales. She said her company tried to have competitions in which everyone has a chance to win. She did not want to organize the kind of competition where someone has to hurt another person in order to win.

So the Mary Kay competitions are designed around the idea that it is best to compete with yourself. That means every individual is trying to do better then she did last week or last year.

Competition winners are rewarded well. For example, winners of one of the competitions get a gold pin called the Ladder of Success. Sales representatives earn a pin by selling a large number of products. Then they earn jewels for the pin as they increase their sales. Each jewel is placed higher on the ladder than the others. The pin of a top sales representative is covered with diamonds.

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VOICE ONE:

Mary Kay’s third husband, Mel Ash, died of cancer in nineteen eighty. She wanted to help find a cure for the disease. At first, she helped organizations raise money for research. Later, she started the Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation, a non-profit group that provides money to support research about cancers affecting women. In two thousand one, the company and foundation expanded their goals in an effort to help stop violence against women.

Through the years, Mary Kay Ash received many business awards. She was named one of America’s Twenty-Five Most Influential Women in nineteen eighty-five. She became a member of the National Business Hall of Fame in nineteen ninety-six.

VOICE TWO:

Mary Kay Ash wrote three books. The first book, “Mary Kay,” told the story of her life. More than one million copies in several languages have been sold. She described her business ideas in the book “Mary Kay on People Management.” Her third book was released in nineteen ninety-five. It is called “Mary Kay--You Can Have It All.” The money earned from its sales went to help fight cancer.

Mary Kay Ash continued her involvement in her business until she suffered a stroke in nineteen ninety-six. She died in November, two thousand one.

Business experts say she was an important business leader who cared about people. Mary Kay sales representatives say she developed a way for women to earn money and still spend time with their families.

VOICE ONE:

One example is Valerie Yokie. She started selling Mary Kay products twenty years ago. She was an official at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., but left her job to stay home with her two small children. She became interested in the Mary Kay Cosmetics company because it was a way to get started in a business for a small amount of money. She paid less than one hundred dollars for her supplies.

After one year and one half, Missus Yokie became a director of the company and started helping other women become successful Mary Kay representatives. Soon after this, her husband lost his job. Then he developed cancer. Valerie Yokie has supported her family for twenty years through Mary Kay Cosmetics. She is an extremely successful businesswoman. She has won many prizes in Mary Kay competitions, and receives a new pink Cadillac every two years.

Valerie Yokie’s story is similar to those of other Mary Kay representatives. They agree that Mary Kay Ash changed the business world. They say she opened a door for women by providing them with a way to earn money that balances work and family.

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VOICE ONE:

This Special English program was written by Nancy Steinbach and produced by Caty Weaver. I’m Mary Tillotson.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Steve Ember. Listen again next week for another PEOPLE IN AMERICA program on the Voice of America.

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America’s ‘House of Rock’: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Turns 10

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VOICE ONE:

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, is observing its tenth anniversary this year. I’m Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Faith Lapidus. Join us today for the story of what is often called America’s “House of Rock.”

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VOICE ONE:

I.M. Pei

World-famous architect I.M. Pei said he created the building for the Rock and Roll Museum to show the energy of this music. It seems that he succeeded. Some visitors have joked that they can see the building moving.

The glass-and-steel museum honors some of the greatest names in rock and roll. For example, Chuck Berry was one of the first stars of this kind of music. Here is Chuck Berry singing “School Days.”

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VOICE TWO:

Museum exhibits include movies, videos, photographs and radio programs. They tell the story of rock and roll from its early days to the present. Visitors can listen to songs that helped shape this kind of music. They can use a computer to get information about the most famous rock and roll musicians. And they can see thousands of personal objects from famous performers. For example, there are report cards from the school days of the Everly Brothers.

VOICE ONE:

Buddy Holly was another popular rock and roll songwriter and performer. He had many hit songs in just a few years. He died in an airplane crash in nineteen fifty-nine at the age of twenty-two. Here is one of Buddy Holly’s greatest hits, “Peggy Sue.”

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VOICE TWO:

Many visitors to the Rock and Roll Museum are the people who were teenagers in the nineteen fifties when rock and roll was born.

The top part of the museum is the Hall of Fame. The names of the most important people in the history of rock and roll are written on black glass walls. There are now many members of the Hall of Fame.

The idea for building the museum began more than twenty years ago. A group in America’s music industry wanted to honor the men and women who influenced rock and roll music. The group looked for the right place for a museum and hall of fame. It chose the Midwestern city of Cleveland, Ohio.

VOICE ONE:

Each year, a committee of music experts nominates people for the Hall of Fame. The experts choose performers and other people who have influenced rock and roll. A person must have played an active part in rock and roll music for at least twenty-five years to be considered. An international group of music experts votes on the nominations.

Experts chose the first group for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in nineteen eighty-six. Their list included Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles and Sam Cooke; also, Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly. Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard were chosen too. Oh yes. And Elvis Presley.

VOICE TWO:

Elvis Presley is often called “the King of Rock and Roll.” One of his many hit songs was “Jailhouse Rock.” It was from a movie, also called “Jailhouse Rock,” released in nineteen fifty-seven.

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VOICE ONE:

Just recently the Hall of Fame welcomed musicians Buddy Guy, Percy Sledge, the O’Jays, U2 and the Pretenders. Singer and guitar player Chrissie Hynde got the Pretenders together in London in the late nineteen seventies. Here are the Pretenders singing “Brass in Pocket.”

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VOICE TWO:

Many people wondered why Cleveland was chosen for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Well, the city worked hard to get it. Citizens and officials organized a campaign. Six hundred sixty thousand people signed a statement urging that the museum be built there.

VOICE ONE:

It seemed right for Cleveland to become the home of the museum. A man named Alan Freed had a radio show in Cleveland in the early nineteen fifties. He heard the music of black artists like Fats Domino and Chuck Berry, and he liked the expression “rock and roll.” He was one of the first to play this music on his radio show. That was in nineteen fifty-one. Here, Chuck Berry sings “Maybellene.”

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VOICE TWO:

Music experts do not agree on which song was the very first rock and roll song. However, some of them do agree on the first song that made rock and roll popular. Bill Haley and his Comets recorded the song in nineteen fifty-four.

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VOICE ONE:

U2

It was not popular at first. Then it was used in a movie about teenagers called “Blackboard Jungle.” The movie made “Rock Around the Clock” a huge hit.

We leave you now with another rock classic. This one is by the Irish group U2, “Sunday, Bloody Sunday.”

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VOICE TWO:

Our program was written by Jerilyn Watson and produced by Caty Weaver. I’m Faith Lapidus.

VOICE ONE:

And I’m Steve Ember. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

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'A Simple, Humble Worker': Pope Benedict XVI

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I’m Steve Ember with In the News, in VOA Special English.

This Sunday, a special ceremony will take place for the new leader of the world's Roman Catholics, Pope Benedict the Sixteenth. The event is called the Ceremony of Investiture.

Five hundred thousand people are expected to crowd Saint Peter's Square in Vatican City to celebrate Mass with the new pope. They will include political and religious leaders from many countries. More than one thousand million people are Catholic, one-sixth of the world population.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became the two hundred sixty-fifth pope on Tuesday. He is the first German pope in nearly a thousand years. He called himself "a simple, humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord."

Popes are elected for life. Benedict is seventy-eight years old. John Paul the Second was eighty-four when he died on April second. The new pope was a top advisor and close friend to John Paul.

Cardinal Ratzinger chose a name last held by a pope more than eighty years ago. Benedict the Fifteenth led the church during World One. He is remembered as a man of peace.

As Benedict the Sixteenth began his duties, he said he would continue church efforts to increase ties with other Christians and other religions. On Thursday, he re-appointed Cardinal Angelo Sodano as Vatican secretary of state. Other Vatican leaders also kept their jobs.

Joseph Ratzinger was born in Bavaria in nineteen twenty-seven. He was required to join the Hitler Youth and the German Army during World War Two. He fled the military, but was held for a time by American forces as a prisoner of war.

In nineteen sixty-five, as a priest, Joseph Ratzinger served as an advisor at the Second Vatican Council. There, he supported efforts to make the church more open.

He later began to express more traditional opinions. For example, he opposes the use of birth control devices. He is against marriage for priests, or women as priests. And he opposes homosexuality.

In nineteen seventy-seven, three months after he became Bishop of Munich, Pope Paul the Sixth made him a cardinal.

Cardinal Ratzinger served for more than twenty years as head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. That office enforces the teachings of the church. Until less than a century ago, it was called the Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition.

In two thousand, Cardinal Ratzinger signed a declaration that is again in the news because of his election. It said that followers of other religions are in a "gravely deficient situation" compared to those in the church.

Cardinal Ratzinger became dean of the College of Cardinals in two thousand two.

While some Catholics said they had wished for a less conservative pope, others had wished for a modern pope from the developing world. Today two-thirds of Catholics live in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

But this week the electors at the Vatican agreed quickly on their choice. On the second day of meetings, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict the Sixteenth.

In the News, in VOA Special English, was written by Jerilyn Watson. I’m Steve Ember.

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Wal-Mart Tops the Fortune 500 List for the Fourth Year

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I’m Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English Economics Report.

Each year the business magazine Fortune publishes a list of the five hundred largest American companies. The new Fortune five hundred list has come out. And, for the fourth year, Wal-Mart is at the top.

Wal-Mart stores sell general goods at low prices. The company had sales of almost two hundred ninety thousand million dollars last year.

Wal-Mart is first on the Fortune five hundred list by revenue, or the total amount of money received. The oil company Exxon Mobil is second. But, for the second year, Exxon Mobil is first in profits among American companies. Wal-Mart is listed eighth in profits.

Exxon Mobil recorded a profit of more than twenty-five thousand million dollars last year. That was an increase of almost eighteen percent over the year before.

General Motors is third on the Fortune list of top companies by revenue, followed by Ford Motor Company and General Electric.

Two other oil companies are sixth and seventh on the list. Like Exxon Mobil, ChevronTexaco and ConocoPhillips both gained from high oil prices.

Citigroup is eighth on the Fortune five hundred list by revenue. As in two thousand three, the financial services company was second in profits last year, behind Exxon Mobil.

Ninth on the list by revenue is the insurance company American International Group. A.I.G. is followed by I.B.M., International Business Machines. In two thousand three I.B.M. was ninth and A.I.G. was tenth.

The yearly Fortune lists contain only companies that release their financial information to the public.

So far we have talked about leaders in revenues and profits. But Fortune also lists companies by assets. Assets are anything of value that a company or individual owns, including property, savings and investments.

The top three companies by assets are all banks. Citigroup tops the list of American asset holders. It has assets of about one and one-half million million dollars. J.P. Morgan Chase & Company and Bank of America are the next two on the list.

Just as in two thousand three, the largest American companies had record sales last year. The oil and mining industries did very well. But the airline industry suffered big losses because of high fuel prices and strong competition. Price competition also meant heavy losses for some telecommunications companies.

This VOA Special English Economics Report was written by Mario Ritter. I'm Gwen Outen.

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Beyond History Books: New Museum Tells Lincoln's Story

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HOST: Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC, in VOA Special English.

I'm Doug Johnson. On our show this week:

Music to celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month …

A question from listeners about Abraham Lincoln ...

And a report about Earth Day.

Earth Day and Goldman Prize

Happy birthday, Earth Day! This April twenty-second is the thirty-fifth anniversary of Earth Day. Former United States Senator Gaylord Nelson started the observance.

Earth Day is a time for individuals to get involved in the health of the planet.

One person might decide to clean up a local park. Another might plant a tree. Someone else might organize a community environmental project. These kinds of activities are known as grassroots efforts.

Each year around Earth Day, an organization in California honors grassroots environmental activists around the world. Gwen Outen reports on this year’s winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize.

GWEN OUTEN: The winner from Europe is Stephanie Danielle Roth, a citizen of both France and Switzerland. Miz Roth is being honored for leading an international effort to stop the building of a gold and silver mine in Romania. She has organized large demonstrations. She has also created a coalition of non-governmental organizations, scientists and others to take part in the fight.

The winner of the Goldman Prize for South and Central America is Father Jose Andres Tamayo Cortez. The Roman Catholic clergyman has organized protests in an effort to save trees from illegal destruction in central Honduras.

The Goldman winner from North America is also active against illegal logging. Isidro Baldenegro Lopez of Mexico organized protests to save old growth forests in the Sierra Madre Mountains. He was jailed for fifteen months. But the Goldman Foundation says he continues to work for environmental justice and land rights for the Tarahumara people.

Corneille Ewango from the Democratic Republic of Congo is the Goldman Prize winner for Africa. Mister Ewango is a plant scientist. He risked his own safety to protect animals and plants in a rainforest during years of civil war. He is now a graduate student in the United States.

The Goldman winner for island nations is Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of Haiti. He has taught environmentally responsible farming methods for thirty years. The Goldman Foundation says he and his students have planted more than twenty million trees in Haiti.

Finally, the Goldman Environmental Prize for Asia was awarded to a biologist from Kazakhstan. Kaisha Atakhanova led a successful fight against legislation to permit the import and storage of radioactive waste in her country.

Rhonda and Richard Goldman established the prize in nineteen ninety. They wanted to honor individuals who work to protect the environment. Each winner receives one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars.

Abraham Lincoln

HOST: Time for our weekly question from listeners. Ezekiel Adeniran and Martins Ojoiso in Nigeria both ask about the sixteenth president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.

Before we talk about his life, we want to tell you about the new Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield, Illinois. The museum officially opened this week with a ceremony attended by President Bush and his wife, Laura. There is also an Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library which opened last October.

Abraham Lincoln was born in eighteen oh nine in Kentucky, but he grew up in Illinois. His family was poor and had no education. But Abraham Lincoln taught himself what he needed to know. He became a lawyer. He served in the Illinois state legislature and in the United States Congress. He was elected president in eighteen sixty.

President Lincoln led the United States during the Civil War. He sent Northern forces to battle the slave-holding Southern states to keep them from leaving the Union. Lincoln freed the slaves and helped keep the nation together.

In the end, it cost him his life. On April fourteenth, eighty sixty-five, a Southern sympathizer shot Abraham Lincoln in Ford's Theater in Washington. It happened five days after the South surrendered and the Civil War ended.

Abraham Lincoln wrote some of the most important words in American history. In eighteen sixty-three, he gave what became his best known speech. The Union army had won a major battle at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Ceremonies were held there to honor the dead at a burial place on the battlefield.

President Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg for only about two minutes. Written copies of his speech differ; without a recording, no one can be sure exactly what he said. But his speech has never been forgotten. Here is Harry Monroe with the last few lines of the version that can be found on a wall of Lincoln Memorial:

HARRY MONROE: It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Jazz Appreciation Month

April is "Jazz Appreciation Month" in the United States. The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.. began this observance. The aim is to get everyone to take part in jazz in some way: study it, play it or just listen to it. Other countries are also celebrating jazz this month. These include Argentina, Britain, Canada, Germany Japan and Sweden. Shep O’Neal has our report.

SHEP O'NEAL: Jazz is often called America's greatest gift to the arts. It came to life full of the emotions of a people who first arrived as slaves from Africa.

Here is a famous early jazz recording, King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band playing "Chimes Blues."

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Today, jazz musicians play all kinds of music. It can sound like swing or bebop, rock and roll or country-western. Or it can sound traditional.

One of the most popular jazz singers in the world today is Cassandra Wilson. Here she is with the Bob Dylan song, "Lay Lady Lay."

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Jazz performers sometimes create new music as they play. They add their own notes to already existing music.

The same song can sound fresh and new each time a jazz musician plays it. Miles Davis was one great jazz musician known for his improvisation. We leave you with the Miles Davis Sextet playing "So What."

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HOST: I'm Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program.

Our show was written by Nancy Steinbach and Caty Weaver, who was also our producer.

Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOA’s radio magazine in Special English.

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The American Civil War: Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

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VOICE ONE:

THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a program in Special English.

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In November, eighteen-sixty-three, President Abraham Lincoln traveled to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He was to make a speech opening a military cemetery there.

Five months earlier, Confederate General Robert E. Lee had marched his army up from Virginia to invade the north. The Union Army of the Potomac went after him. They met at Gettysburg in the bloodiest battle of America's Civil War.

I'm Frank Oliver. Today, Kay Gallant and I tell the story of Abraham Lincoln's speech. . . his Gettysburg Address.

VOICE TWO:

The battle of Gettysburg lasted three days. General Lee threw his men against the Union Army. The northern soldiers refused to break. Lee, at last, had to stop fighting. Badly hurt, his army went back to Virginia.

Lee left behind a battlefield covered with Confederate dead. More than three thousand Confederate soldiers had been killed. Union losses were almost as heavy. Two thousand five hundred Union soldiers had been killed.

The terrible job of clearing the battlefield fell to the Union soldiers who had won the battle. Many thousands on both sides had been wounded. The wounded were moved to medical centers for treatment. The dead were buried.

Most of the bodies were buried where they fell. The Confederate dead generally were buried together in large, shallow graves. Union troops who fell were buried in separate graves all over the battlefield.

VOICE ONE:

A few weeks after the battle, the governor of Pennsylvania visited Gettysburg. As he walked over the battlefield, he saw where rains had washed away the earth covering many of the fallen soldiers. He said men who died so bravely should have a better resting place than that.

The governor said a new cemetery should be built for the bodies of the Union soldiers. He asked the governors of other northern states to help raise money for the cemetery.

Within a month, there was money enough to buy a large area of the battlefield for a military cemetery. Work began almost immediately. The human remains were moved from other places on the battlefield and put into graves in the new cemetery.

VOICE TWO:

The governor planned a ceremony in November, eighteen sixty-three, to dedicate the Gettysburg cemetery. He invited governors and congressmen from each state in the Union. He asked a former senator and governor of Massachusetts, Edward Everett, to give the dedication speech.

Abraham Lincoln

An invitation was sent to the White House, too. The governor asked President Lincoln to come to the ceremony. He asked Lincoln to say a few words.

Lincoln agreed to do so. He felt it was his duty to go. He wanted to honor the brave men who had died at Gettysburg. Lincoln hoped his words might ease the sorrow over the loss of these men and lift the spirit of the nation.

VOICE ONE:

Lincoln was advised to talk about democracy. He recently had received a letter from a man in Massachusetts. The man had just returned from a visit to Europe.

The man told Lincoln that Europeans saw the war more clearly than Americans, who were in the middle of it. He said they saw it as a war between the people and an aristocracy. The south, he said, was ruled by a small group of aristocrats. He said once the people understood that it was a war for democracy, they would win it quickly.

The man urged Lincoln to explain to the common people that the war was not the north against the south...But democracy against the enemies of democracy.

VOICE TWO:

Lincoln was busy during the two weeks before the ceremony at Gettysburg. He did not have much time to work on his speech. He decided what to say. But he did not choose the exact words he would use.

Lincoln left Washington November eighteenth for the train ride to Gettysburg. The train stopped in Baltimore. A crowd waited to see him.

An old man came up and shook Lincoln's hand. He told the president that he had lost a son in the fighting at Gettysburg. Lincoln said he understood the man's sorrow.

Lincoln said to the old man: "When I think of the sacrifices of life still to be offered, and the hearts and homes to be made lonely before this terrible war is over, my heart is like lead. I feel at times like hiding in a deep darkness."

VOICE ONE:

Lincoln arrived at Gettysburg at sundown. He had dinner. Then he went to his room to complete the speech he would give the next day. He worked for several hours. Finally, it was done.

The next morning, Lincoln -- on horseback -- led a slow parade to the new cemetery. A huge crowd waited before the place where Lincoln and the other important visitors would sit. Military bands played. Soldiers saluted.

VOICE TWO:

The ceremonies began with a prayer. Then Edward Everett rose to speak.

Everett stood silent for a moment. He looked out across the battlefield and the crowds that now covered it. He began to talk about the Civil War and what had caused it. He spoke about Lee's invasion of the north. He told how northern cities would have fallen had Lee not been stopped at Gettysburg. He praised the men who had given their lives in the great battle.

Everett spoke for almost two hours. He closed his speech with the hope that the nation would come out of the war with greater unity than ever before.

Then Lincoln stood up. He looked out over the valley, then down at the papers in his hand. He began to read:

VOICE THREE:

"Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

"Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

"But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate - we cannot consecrate - we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work for which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

VOICE ONE:

The crowd applauded for several minutes. Then the people began to leave.

Lincoln turned to a friend. He said he feared his speech had been a failure. He said he should have prepared it more carefully.

Edward Everett did not agree with Lincoln. He said the president's speech was perfect. He said the president had said more in two minutes than he, Everett, had said in two hours.

Newspapers and other publications praised Lincoln's Gettysburg address. Said one: "The few words of the president were from the heart, to the heart. They cannot be read without emotion."

Abraham Lincoln went back to Washington that night. He was very tired. Within a week, his secretary announced that the president was sick. He was suffering from smallpox.

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VOICE TWO:

You have been listening to the Special English program, THE MAKING OF A NATION. Your narrators were Frank Oliver and Kay Gallant. The Gettysburg Address was read by Harry Monroe. Our program was written by Frank Beardsley.

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Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Lecturer... What's the Difference?

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I'm Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English Education Report.

A listener at Hefei University of Technology in Anhui Province, China, has a question for our Foreign Student Series. The question involves the system of job names in American higher education. Zhang Xiang wants to know the difference between positions like professor, associate professor and lecturer.

In the United States, a person who wants to do research and teach at a college or university usually has a doctorate, the highest degree. But sometimes a school may offer positions to people who have not yet finished their doctorate.

Such a person would be called an instructor until the degree has been completed. After that, the instructor could become an assistant professor. Assistant professors do not have tenure.

A person with tenure cannot be easily dismissed. Such appointments are permanent. University teachers and researchers who are hired with the understanding that they will seek tenure are said to be on a tenure track. Assistant professor is the first job on this path.

Assistant professors generally have five to seven years to gain tenure. During this time, other faculty members study the person's work. If tenure is denied, then the assistant professor usually has a year to find another job.

An assistant professor who receives tenure becomes an associate professor. An associate professor may later be appointed a full professor.

Assistant, associate and full professors at American universities perform many duties. They teach classes. They advise students. And they carry out research that is published. They also serve on university committees and take part in other activities.

Other faculty members at American universities are not expected to do all those jobs. They are not on a tenure track. Instead, they might be in adjunct or visiting positions. A visiting professor has a job at one school but works at another for a period of time. An adjunct professor is also a limited or part-time position, to do research or teach classes. Adjunct professors have a doctorate.

Another position is that of lecturer. Lecturers teach classes, but they may or may not have a doctorate.

If you have a general question about the American education system, send it to special@voanews.com. And if you would like to find the other reports in our Foreign Student Series, go to voaspecialenglish.com.

This VOA Special English Education Report was written by Nancy Steinbach. I'm Gwen Outen.

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How Robert Goddard Helped Lead America Into Space

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VOICE ONE:

This is Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And this is Shirley Griffith with the VOA Special English program, EXPLORATIONS. Today, we report on some of the early research in the development of rockets. We tell the story of American physicist and rocket scientist Robert Hutchings Goddard.

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VOICE ONE:

Robert Goddard once said that the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow. It was his scientific work that gave hope to many of our dreams about space...and then turned them into reality.

Robert Goddard's many studies and tests in the early Nineteen-Hundreds led to the first modern rocket. Then he developed rockets with more than one engine. Each engine pushed the rocket higher and higher out of Earth's atmosphere. His ideas are still used today. So, in a way, every rocket that flies today is a Goddard rocket.

VOICE TWO:

Robert Goddard was far ahead of his time. Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first controlled airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in Nineteen-Oh-Three. Other scientists and inventors after that experimented with planes. But Robert Goddard wanted to make a machine that flew in a different way from a plane. He called his first two designs, "rocket apparatus."

Robert Goddard working on a rocket.

Goddard developed and flew many rockets that got their power from solid fuels -- chemicals made hard. Then, in Nineteen-Twenty-Five, he made and tested the first rocket engine using a soft chemical fuel. In Nineteen-Twenty-Six, he successfully fired the world's first liquid-fuel rocket.

Many historians consider that rocket flight as important as the first airplane flight by the Wright brothers. Goddard's work proved that machines could travel out of Earth's atmosphere, into space.

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VOICE ONE:

Robert Hutchings Goddard was born in Worcester, in the state of Massachusetts, in Eighteen-Eighty-Two. His father knew a lot about machines. When Robert was a child, his family moved to Boston, Massachusetts. There his father became a part owner of a business that made knives for different machines.

Robert was the only child. His mother suffered from the lung disease tuberculosis. She was sick and weak, because at that time, there were no medicines to treat tuberculosis successfully.

Robert, too, was often sick. He could not keep up with his school work. His family moved back to Worcester when he was seventeen. He was almost too old to remain in high school. Yet he was behind other children his age. He was not a good student.

He hated mathematics. This subject, of course, was what would help make him famous later.

VOICE TWO:

One beautiful autumn day, Robert was sitting in a tree in the back of his house. He was reading a book by British author H. G. Wells. The book was called “War of the Worlds.” Something strange happened to him. He later thought that perhaps Wells's book had something to do with it.

"As I looked toward the fields in the east," he said, "I imagined how wonderful it would be to make something that could rise to the planet Mars. I imagined how this thing, in a small size, would look if sent up from the ground at my feet. I was a different boy when I came down from that tree. For, at last, my life seemed to have some purpose."

VOICE ONE:

Robert Goddard never talked much about what happened to him up in the tree on that day, October Nineteenth. But he celebrated October Nineteenth as a holiday for the rest of his life. On that day, he had formed the idea of making something that would go higher than anything had ever gone before.

He felt this was the whole purpose of his life. He was not troubled that many people thought he was foolish. He was sure he could do it.

"I know," he said, "the first thing I must do is to get an education, especially in mathematics. Yes, I must become an expert in mathematics, even if I hate it."

VOICE TWO:

Two years passed before Robert was healthy enough to go back to school. He entered South High School in Worcester. He worked and worked until he no longer hated mathematics.

Robert's father spent all his money to care for his sick wife. He did not have enough to pay for Robert's education after high school. Robert got financial help from others so he could go to a technical school in Worcester.

There he had very good teachers. They helped him become an expert in mathematics and physics.

VOICE ONE:

Robert completed his studies at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute and became a teacher of physics there. He also continued his studies at Clark University.

He began to develop the idea of multiple-stage rockets. These were rockets with more than one engine. Each engine would push the rocket higher and higher. The power for the rockets would come from burning two gases, hydrogen and oxygen.

After one year at Clark University, Robert went to Princeton College in New Jersey to do more studies on rockets.

VOICE TWO:

"Often," he said, "I worked all through the night. At last I learned how to send a rocket higher than anything had ever gone before. But the work was too much for me. I was feeling sick again. I had to stop my work and go to a doctor.

"X-rays showed that, like my mother, I was very sick with tuberculosis. The doctor said I had just two weeks to live. He put me in bed for a long rest. But I meant to live. I told myself I could not die. I had work to do."

VOICE ONE:

At the end of two weeks, Robert Goddard was still alive. In time, he started to work again.

In October, Nineteen-Thirteen, Goddard completed plans for his first rocket. In May of the next year, he completed plans for another rocket. These two plans are the first ever made for a rocket that would carry people into space. In Nineteen-Fourteen, he received two patents from the United States government to protect his rights to his inventions.

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VOICE TWO:

Robert Goddard received money from the Smithsonian Institution to help him continue his work. In Nineteen-Nineteen, the Smithsonian published several of his reports explaining his research. The publication was called "A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes." It told about his search for methods of raising weather-recording instruments higher than balloons could go. It told about how he developed the mathematical theories of rockets.

In the report, Goddard also noted the possibility of a rocket reaching the moon. There was a big dispute in the press about the possibility of this. Many people thought he was foolish for suggesting such an impossible thing.

VOICE ONE:

Goddard continued to need money to continue his research. The world famous pilot Charles Lindbergh helped him get money from the Guggenheim Foundation.

Goddard quickly began to work on plans for bigger rockets. During the Nineteen-Thirties, he tested his rockets at a research center in Roswell, New Mexico. He tested the first rocket controlled by electricity. The control equipment was three-hundred meters from the place of launching. He also tested the first rocket controlled by a gyroscope. Gyroscopes help keep rockets aimed in the right direction.

VOICE TWO:

Goddard did all his work in the United States, yet his work became known around the world. Scientists in Germany used his ideas to help build the V-Two rocket that was used in World War Two.

During World War Two, Goddard helped the United States Navy develop some rocket motors and ways to launch jet planes. He continued work he had begun at the end of World War One that led to the bazooka, a weapon that fires small rockets.

VOICE ONE:

Robert Goddard died in Ninety-Forty-Five of cancer. He was sixty-three years old. He had been sick most of his life, but he died a happy man. He received many honors for his work. He believed his life had been a full one. He felt lucky that the great dream that came to him, out of nowhere when he was only seventeen years old, had become real.

VOICE TWO:

Robert Goddard received a special honor many years after his death. In Nineteen-Fifty-Nine, the United States established the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, near Washington, D.C. It was the government's first major scientific laboratory used completely for space science.

The Goddard Space Flight Center honors the man whose work proved that machines could travel out of Earth's atmosphere, into space.

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VOICE ONE:

This is Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And this is Shirley Griffith. Listen again next week at this time to the Special English program, EXPLORATIONS, on the Voice of America.

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