Originated by the ancient Greeks, the Olympic Games are the leading international sporting event. The games were revived by Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin, and the first modern Olympics were held in 1896.
The Winter Olympic Games were not a part of the modern Olympics when they started. They were played separately as the Nordic Games. The Nordic Games were the first international sporting event that focused primarily on sports played in winter. A person called Victor Balck, a close friend of Pierre de Coubertin, organised the first Nordic Games. It was Victor’s idea to include winter games in the Olympics.
However, only in 1924, the first Winter Olympic Games were held as a separate event in Chamonix, France. Athletes competed in 16 events in six different sports. The Games were held from 1924 until 1936, after which they were interrupted by World War II. The Olympics resumed in 1948 and were arranged every four years.
In 1994, it was decided to hold the Summer and Winter Olympic Games in different years. So in fact, we can watch the Olympic Games once every two years. First, the Summer Games, then, in two years, the Winter Games, and two years after the Summer Games again. So one set of Olympic Games, summer or winter, is held every two years.
As time went on more sports were introduced to the Winter Olympiad. Nowadays there are fifteen sport disciplines, four of them are indoor sports: curling, figure skating, speed skating and ice hockey.
The Winter Olympics have been hosted in 19 cities in different countries. Some cities have arranged the main international winter sporting event several times: Lake Placid (the USA), Innsbruck (Austria), St Moritz (Switzerland). But the Winter Olympic Games have never been held in Africa, Australia, South America or Antarctica.
In 2014, Sochi, Russia was the host of the XXII Winter Olympic Games. A total of 98 events in 15 winter sport disciplines were held during the Games. Lots of sporting records and unique results were recorded at the Olympic Games. However, there were several records which were set during the preparation and Olympiad organization. Sochi was the first sub-tropical city that has ever organized the Winter Olympic Games. Before the start of the XXII Games in Sochi, the Olympic torch travelled the longest distance in history to some amazing places, including the North Pole, the bottom of Lake Baikal (the world’s deepest lake), the top of Mount Elbrus (Europe's highest mountain), and even into outer space. For the first time in Olympic history, a public vote was held to decide the mascots, symbols that bring good luck to the event, for the Olympics. It was decided that the mascots of the Olympic Games, would be a Leopard, a Polar Bear, and a Hare. They looked very cute and contributed to the success of the Games.
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| Victor Balck proposed to add winter sports to the list of Olympic sports. | |||||||||
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| There was more than a ten-year break in the history of the Winter Olympic Games. | |||||||||
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| The Winter Olympic Games are held every two years. | |||||||||
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| Several new sports were added to the list of the Winter Olympiad after 1924. | |||||||||
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| According to the plans, the next Winter Olympic Games will be held in Australia. | |||||||||
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| The Olympic torch visited several extreme places before the 2014 Games in Sochi. | |||||||||
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| The mascots of the XXII Olympic Games were chosen by the Olympic Committee. | |||||||||
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# 74 (4E689F)
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci was the most famous personality of the 15th and 16th centuries. He is widely known as a brilliant artist and scientist. Fewer people know that he was also an engineer, an inventor, a toymaker, a machine designer, an architect, a singer, a theatre costume designer and an animal lover!
Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452 in Italy. The name Leonardo da Vinci can be interpreted as Leonard from the Italian town of Vinci. His father was from a rich family.
From his childhood, Leonardo was a brilliant painter. He took painting very seriously and studied it regularly. He even created his own paints to be used for his pictures. Seeing this, Leonardo’s father took him to a famous painter, Andrea del Verrocchio, who helped Leonardo to develop his extraordinary painting abilities. Leonardo spent several years learning art in his studio. Once Leonardo was asked to draw a painting of an angel. His drawing was so good that his teacher decided to never paint again.
By the age of 25, Leonardo had started his own workshop and had become a famous painter. He was one of the first Italians to use oil paints. According to art experts, his Mona Lisa is considered to be the best known, the most visited, and the most written about work of art in the world. Nowadays this portrait of a woman hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris. People don’t know for sure who the Mona Lisa was. But there have been lots of ideas like it was the real-life wife of a merchant, or even a self-portrait of Leonardo as a woman.
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Even though he was a great artist, Leonardo had trouble finishing his work. There were so many interesting things to learn and to do. His remarks and inventions were recorded in 13,000 pages of notes and drawings. There were designs for the first parachute, the first helicopter, the first aeroplane, the first tank, the first bicycle, the first swing bridge, and the first motorcar in his diaries. Since Leonardo’s inventions were way ahead of their time, they were never realized during his lifetime. Leonardo also never published any of his notes and drawings. He simply kept personal diaries in which he recorded them.
Leonardo da Vinci wrote most of his notes from right to left. The result of this writing was a mirror script, which was not easy to read. Maybe it was due to the fact that he wanted to keep his writing secret. According to his pupils, Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time.
Another interesting fact about Leonardo da Vinci was that he was a strict vegetarian! This was an unusual thing for a person who lived in the Middle Ages. Leonardo did this not for any health reasons but because he loved animals and was against killing animals for food. He was also against keeping animals in cages. He used to buy caged animals and birds and set them free.
Leonardo Da Vinci died in France, in 1519 at the age of 67. His diaries were discovered much later after his death. He is known as, without a doubt, one of the greatest painters of all time and, quite possibly, the most talented person that has ever lived.
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| Leonardo’s father had a great art collection. | |||||||||
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| One day, Leonardo da Vinci became a more brilliant artist than his teacher. | |||||||||
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| Nowadays there are several versions about who Mona Lisa was. | |||||||||
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| Leonardo da Vinci saw most of his inventions in practical use. | |||||||||
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| Leonardo da Vinci invented a special ink to write his notes. | |||||||||
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| Leonardo da Vinci became a vegetarian because of an illness. | |||||||||
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| After Leonardo’s death, his diaries were found in his Italian workshop. | |||||||||
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# 75 (4DD466)
Anne Frank
Anne Frank was a Jewish girl who became famous after her death when her wartime diary was published.
Anne was born on June 12th, 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany to Otto Frank and Edith Frank. Anne was the youngest of two sisters. When the Nazis gained control of Germany and the danger to Jewish people increased, her family emigrated to the Netherlands. Anne was four at that time.
On May 10th, 1940, after the outbreak of World War II, German armies invaded the Netherlands. The danger was getting very close to the Jewish family. Soon Anne's older sister, Margot, got a note from the new authorities. She had to go to a German work camp. However, Margot did not obey. Instead, the Franks went to a secret hiding place which they had prepared beforehand.
They hid in a small annex, an extra building added to a house. Later Anne called it the Secret Annex. Together with the Franks, there were eight people in the Secret Annex. The entrance to the annex was hidden behind a moveable bookcase. While hiding, the Franks could not go outside. They had to stay quiet so that the neighbours did not guess that there was anybody in the annex. The Franks lived in constant fear of what would happen if they were discovered.
Anne started writing her diary on her thirteenth birthday. The diary would later be published as The Diary of Anne Frank. In her diary, Anne wrote about her thoughts, and about her life in the Secret Annex. Most of her diary was written in the form of letters to a person named Kitty. Anne also wrote short stories and collected quotes from other writers in her notebook. The girl had dreams of becoming a journalist or a writer.
The Franks spent 2 years in the Secret Annex. When Anne was 15 years old, the Secret Annex where they had been hiding was discovered. It is believed that someone betrayed them. On 4th August 1944, all those in the Secret Annex were arrested.
They were sent to Auschwitz, a concentration camp. It was a death camp. Anne was sent to the same barracks as her sister and her mother.Their father,Otto, was separated from his family, and never saw his daughters or his wife again. Anne and her sister survived several months in difficult conditions, working hard.
Later, Anne and her sister were sent to another concentration camp. Anne died there in March, 1945. She was only 15 years old. It is believed that she died of typhoid.
All the inhabitants of the Secret Annex, except Otto Frank, died in the concentration camps. He returned to Amsterdam and found the diary of his daughter. Two years later, in 1947, he published Anne's diary.
The book, The Diary of Anne Frank, impressed people a lot. There have been more than 30 million copies sold. It was translated into 67 languages and it was adapted for both the theatre and the cinema.
The address where Anne Frank and her family hid was Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Now there is a museum (the Anne Frank House) where people can see the actual house she lived in while in hiding. Approximately one million people visit the Anne Frank House each year.
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| The Secret Annex was not far from the house where the Franks lived in Amsterdam. | |||||||||
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| The Frank family shared their hiding place with other people. | |||||||||
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| Kitty was Anne’s cousin. | |||||||||
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| Anne Frank wanted to become an actress. | |||||||||
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| All the people who were hiding in the Secret Annex were arrested by the Nazis. | |||||||||
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| After the war, the book The Diary of Anne Frank was published in different languages. | |||||||||
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| The Anne Frank House museum is located in Germany. | |||||||||
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# 76 (E5F6AC)
The picture
Arthur started painting when he was 10. He loved painting so much that he decided to become an artist. Arthur studied painting seriously and mastered his technical skills to reach a professional standard. At 25 he arranged his first exhibition. Art critics wrote nice reviews of the exhibition and most of his paintings were sold. Arthur was happy. He married Tina, the girl he had loved since his school days, and rented a room to build his workshop there. Soon, to complete his education, Arthur went to Italy. He lived and painted there for almost half a year. When his money was spent, Arthur returned home.
Time passed but Arthur’s other exhibitions were less successful than the first one. In fact Arthur painted much better than before his visit to Italy. But the art critics said that his paintings were too academic and there was nothing new in them. Arthur worked hard to improve his style. Sometimes he managed to sell some of his paintings but soon the money ran out and he felt very unhappy.
One morning Arthur came to his workshop earlier than usual. He tried to finish one of his pictures but he felt that he wasn’t able to work. Arthur got angry and threw down his brush. A bright orange spot appeared on the board which lay below to protect the floor. The board was covered with green, blue and yellow paint from previous work. It was a real mixture of bright colours. Arthur ran out of the workshop.
An hour later, Tina came to the workshop to clean it. She picked up the board and put it against the wall to clean the floor. At that moment, Mr Harrison, the owner of an art gallery, came in. Two days before Arthur had invited him to come and look at the pictures. Arthur went around the workshop looking at the pictures. There was a blank and bored expression on his face. He sighed, “Nothing interesting”. Suddenly the board against the wall attracted his attention. He went closer.
“Tina, my dear,” he said. “What an interesting picture! Is it Arthur’s new work? Why is he keeping it from us?”
Tina kept silent, she didn’t know what to answer. Mr Harrison continued admiring the picture with an orange spot. “I’m happy that he has changed his style. This really is something special. I’ll ring Arthur this evening. Tell him that I’m ready to buy this picture myself. And any other pictures in this style.” Then he left the workshop.
When Arthur came back, Tina told him about Mr Harrison’s visit. She was very nervous and Arthur couldn’t understand her at first. Tina repeated the story and Arthur started to laugh. Then he asked, “Why didn’t you explain the whole thing about the board to Mr Harrison?”
“I don’t know,” answered Tina. “I knew that I should. But at first I thought he was playing jokes. Then I was afraid to look silly. I just said I didn’t think you would sell it.”
“I see,” said Arthur. “But what shall we do now?”
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| Tina, Arthur’s wife, was an artist too. | |||||||||
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| When Arthur returned from Italy, his pictures started to sell better. | |||||||||
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| One day, by accident Arthur put a bright orange spot on his best picture. | |||||||||
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| When Mr Harrison came into the workshop, Arthur was out. | |||||||||
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| Mr Harrison wanted to buy one of Arthur’s paintings. | |||||||||
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| When Tina told Arthur about Mr Harrison’s offer, he got angry. | |||||||||
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| Arthur and Tina decided to keep the painting with the orange spot for themselves. | |||||||||
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