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Orville And Wilbur Wright.
Have you ever watched a bird flying gracefully through the air and wished that you could do the same?
Some years ago two American boys dreamed of flying, too. Today because of their hard work, you can fly much faster and farther than any bird in a machine much heavier than air. This machine is called an aeroplane.
Wilbur and Orville Wright had always wanted to fly. As children they loved the old story about a Greek boy, Icarus, who flew with wings that were held to his arms by wax. But, so the story goes, he flew so high that the wax melted in the heat of the sun. His wings fell off and he dropped into the sea.
"What we need to fly are wings with a machine," said Wilbur. And so the young Orville Wright brothers began to think about how they could build an aeroplane. They owned a bicycle shop. All the money they made from selling and mending bicycles was used in trying to build aeroplanes.
In 1896 a german man named Otto Lilienthal was killed while gliding in the air. He had hand-made wings tied to his body. The wind lifted him off the ground all right. Then it became stronger and suddenly caught his light wings, returning them over, and he fell to his death.
When the Wright brothers heard of this, they made a glider, too. But instead of using their own bodies to keep it straight, they thought of a way to make the wings move from side to side when they turned. Next they added a small engine. In 1903 Orville flew their first aeroplane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. He stayed up in the air for almost a minute!
Very few people were there to watch him fly. So the world could not believe that it was really true. But that did not stop Orville and Wilbur. They kept on working.
They found out how to make the machine turn easily. And they build better safer flying machine. By 1908, just five years later, they were able to fly their aeroplane for two and half hours at a time.
The United States Army paid them a great deal of money to build planes. They also took their aeroplanes to Europe to show how they could fly.
Aeroplanes are much larger and faster now, but the work of Wrights was the beginning of a wonderful way to travel, flying through the air.
Florence Nightigale.
"Be a lady dear. That's what we want! " How many times pretty young Florence Nightingale heard these words from her father and mother! But for her, being a lady was not enough. She wanted to do something for others.
Florence's father was a very rich man. Florence took lessons in music and drawing, and read great books. She could speak French, German, and Italian as well as English. And she travelled a great deal with her mother and father.
As a child she felt that visiting sick people was both a duty and a pleasure. She enjoyed helping them. As often as she could, she visited hospitals in others countries. She saw so much suffering that she knew she must help.
At last her mind was made up: "I'm going to be a nurse," she decided.
"Nursing isn't the right work for a lady," her father told her.
"Then I will make it so," she smile. And she went to learn nursing in Germany and France. When she returned to England, Florence, started a nursing home for women. Here she did everything from washing floors to giving her patients new hope.
During the Crimean War in 1854 many soldiers were wounded or became ill. News reached England that they were receiving very little care. At once Florence Nightingale wrote to the War Office and offered her services. She went with a band of thirty-eight nurses to the hospitals at Scutari.
What they saw there was even worse than they expected. Dirt and death were everywhere to be seen and smelled. The officer there did not want any women to tell him how to run a hospital, either. But the brave nurses went to work.
Florence used her own money and some from friends to buy clothes, beds, medicines, and food for the men. Her only pay was in smiles from the lips of dying soldiers. But they were more than enough for this kind woman.
She fell dangerously ill herself, but she did not stop working. Her thin hands worked day and night. Even in the last hours of night she could be seen walking with a lamp past each bed. The soldiers often kissed her shadow as "the lady of the lamp" went by.
After the war she returned to England and was honoured for her services by Queen Victoria.
But Florence said her work had just begun. She raised money to build the Nightingale Home for Nurses in London, and she asked young girls to learn nursing there.
She also wrote a book on public health, which was printed in several countries.
Florence Nightingale died at the age of ninety, still trying to serve other through her work as a nurse. Indeed, it is because of Florence Nightingale that we honour nurses today.
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Florence's father was a very rich man. Florence took lessons in music and drawing, and read great books. She could speak French, German, and Italian as well as English. And she travelled a great deal with her mother and father.
As a child she felt that visiting sick people was both a duty and a pleasure. She enjoyed helping them. As often as she could, she visited hospitals in others countries. She saw so much suffering that she knew she must help.
At last her mind was made up: "I'm going to be a nurse," she decided.
"Nursing isn't the right work for a lady," her father told her.
"Then I will make it so," she smile. And she went to learn nursing in Germany and France. When she returned to England, Florence, started a nursing home for women. Here she did everything from washing floors to giving her patients new hope.
During the Crimean War in 1854 many soldiers were wounded or became ill. News reached England that they were receiving very little care. At once Florence Nightingale wrote to the War Office and offered her services. She went with a band of thirty-eight nurses to the hospitals at Scutari.
What they saw there was even worse than they expected. Dirt and death were everywhere to be seen and smelled. The officer there did not want any women to tell him how to run a hospital, either. But the brave nurses went to work.
Florence used her own money and some from friends to buy clothes, beds, medicines, and food for the men. Her only pay was in smiles from the lips of dying soldiers. But they were more than enough for this kind woman.
She fell dangerously ill herself, but she did not stop working. Her thin hands worked day and night. Even in the last hours of night she could be seen walking with a lamp past each bed. The soldiers often kissed her shadow as "the lady of the lamp" went by.
After the war she returned to England and was honoured for her services by Queen Victoria.
But Florence said her work had just begun. She raised money to build the Nightingale Home for Nurses in London, and she asked young girls to learn nursing there.
She also wrote a book on public health, which was printed in several countries.
Florence Nightingale died at the age of ninety, still trying to serve other through her work as a nurse. Indeed, it is because of Florence Nightingale that we honour nurses today.