Readable, teachable news.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
OBITUARY
The body of former US president George Bush will “lie in state” in Washington, DC, and then return to Texas for burial.
George Bush was the 41st president of the United States. (He is not to be confused with his son, George W. Bush, who was also a US president, from 2001 to 2009.)
George Bush was president from 1989 to 1993.
The Nobel Prize is one of the biggest prizes in the world.
Dr. Strickland will share the prize with Dr. Gérard Mourou of France and Dr. Arthur Ashkin of the United States.
All three scientists won for their work creating tiny (miniature) tools using lasers.
The prize is $1.28 million. It will be divided among the three scientists. Half the money will go to Dr. Ashkin. Dr. Strickland and Dr. Mourou will share the other half.
It was one step, but it represented the possibility of lasting peace for North and South Korea.
Kim Jong-Un, the leader of North Korea, walked to the border between his country and South Korea … and stepped over it, into South Korea.
There, he shook hands with South Korean leader Moon Jae-in.
It was a joining together not just of two leaders, but of two countries that have been at war for 65 years.
The Korean War began on June 25, 1950 and, although fighting ended in 1953 (when an armistice* was declared), no peace treaty was signed by both countries. Officially the two countries remained at war.
Canadian hero Viola Desmond is the face on the new $10 bill in Canada, which goes into circulation at the end of March.
Viola Desmond was thrown in jail in Nova Scotia in 1946 because, in a movie theatre, she wanted to sit downstairs where the white people were allowed to sit. She didn’t want to sit up in the balcony, where the black people had to sit. The police held her in jail overnight. The dignified and brave Desmond paid a fine of $20 the next day, even though she had done nothing wrong. Today, we think of her for being a brave advocate for the rights of African-Canadians and helping to inspire the human rights movement in Canada.
It is a great honour to have your face on a country’s money. This is the first time an African-Canadian woman has been featured on Canadian paper money.
The Olympics and Paralympics bring out the best in people, and the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics are no exception.
As athletes set aside their countries’ differences and test themselves against the best of the best, a sense of mutual respect puts everyone on a level playing field. And that can make for some inspirational, funny and heart-warming moments.
Some of the words to Canada’s national anthem have been changed. In O Canada, the line, “in all thy sons command” has been changed to “in all of us command.” Last week, Canada passed Bill C-210. That bill changes “the National Anthem Act to substitute the words “of us” for the words “thy sons” in the English version of the national anthem, thus making it gender neutral.” Once the bill is approved by the Governor General, it will be come a law.
The Houston Astros won the World Series, the biggest achievement in baseball each year, for the first time in their team’s history.
They beat the Los Angeles Dodgers four games to three.
The Astros won the seventh game of the World Series 5 to 1 over the Dodgers on Nov. 1.
It was a hard-fought battle. The two teams were evenly matched. The fact that the World Series even went to seven games means that neither team ran away with the championship.
The Astros won game seven early. They got five points in the first two innings, putting them ahead of the Dodgers right from the start.
Malala Yousafzai has a message for Canadian kids: Don’t wait, to make a difference. Just because you’re young doesn’t mean you can’t be a leader.
Yousafzai is an activist for children’s rights, and particularly the right for girls to get an education.
In this case, “activist” means that she tries to get that message out, no matter how difficult that may be for her.
On April 9, Canadians commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge in the First World War.
Vimy Ridge is in France, and it was there that a Canadian military force took back the area from the Germans in a battle that many people at the time considered unwinnable.
Students at public schools in Boston, Massachusetts, will soon be looking at the world in a new way. Social studies teachers there will be using a new type of map that shows the world’s continents in slightly different sizes and positions than we usually see them.
