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CHRONOLOGICA

——The Unbelievable Years that Defined History

DID YOU KNOW…

  In 105AD paper was invented in China?

  When Columbus discovered the New World?

  The British Museum opened in 1759?

CHRONOLOGICA is a fascinating journey through time,from the foundation of Rome to the creation of the internet. Along the way are tales of kings and queens,hot air balloons…and monkeys in space.

    Travel through 100 of the most unbelievable years in world history and learn why being a Roman Emperor wasn't always as good as it sounds,how the Hundred Years' War didn't actually last for 100 years and why Spencer Perceval holds a rather unfortunate record.

    CHRONOLOGICA is an informative and entertaining tour into history, beautifully illustrated and full of unbelievable facts. While CHRONOLOGICA tells the stories of famous people in history such as Thomas Edison and Alexander the Great, this book also gives an account of the lives of lesser-known individuals including the exploeer Mungo Park and sculptor Gutzon Borglum.

    This complete but brief historical collection is certain to entertain readers young and old,and guaranteed to present even the biggest history lover with somgthing new!

    This year, Facebook, the social media website, announced that it would cooperate with several news organizations —including The New York Times, The Guardian, and the BBC —to place news stories directly into users' personal Facebook webpage. Stories published using Facebook Instant will load more quickly and keep the style of the original publisher, who will keep all the advertising income the stories earn —at least for now. The deal shows how important social media has become to news organizations, and it is a clear sign of how the world of news is changing —and has been for a while.

    Many thought of it as the death of the newspaper, when Google News began in 2002. It had no human editor. Instead, Google used, and still uses, a secret computer program that selects and displays news stories according to the reader's personal interests. More recently, Associated Press and Yahoo have been punishing computer-written articles. Both use special software to automatically produce stories about company financial results and sports reports —areas where the quality of writing is felt to be of secondary importance to the accuracy of the data.

    I think we should be concerned about such developments. One concern is that Facebook, Google and other social media websites see journalism as a sideline(副业), a way of putting people in front of advertisements. It isn't their primary function —so if it stops making them lots of money, they're likely to stop doing it.

    There's another concern that computer-written articles are not actually journalism at all, because what a human news team produces is actually quite complex. A well-written news story puts information in context, offers a voice to each side of an argument and brings the public new knowledge.

    Though economics and speed of delivery mean readers will probably choose a computer-written story over a carefully shaped article — at least for daily news —I don't think the computers will be writing any in-depth articles for a while yet.

    During the holiday season, many of us feel pressure to find our loved ones the “perfect” gift. Why? Because gift-giving has long been considered a prime way to express love. However, recent research suggests that small acts of kindness, like a kind word, hugging a child or receiving sympathy, make people feel most loved and supported.

    In the study, 495 men and women between the ages of 18 and 93 completed a questionnaire evaluating 60 possible ways that people can feel love. The storyboards included situations like spending time with friends, receiving gifts, and spending time in nature. The survey also included negative interactions, like being controlled and criticized (批评) by others.

    The findings highlight the psychological benefits that close relationships can offer. In fact, study participants ranked human interaction as a more significant expression of love than receiving material items, like presents. Connecting with others was also rated more highly than getting positive feedback on the Internet, indicating that people get the most support from personal human contact.

    “ During the holidays，anxiety rises, making it harder to remain present with ourselves and others. However, the power of spending time with another person is a gift we can give at any moment,” says Dr. Carla Naumburg, a mindfulness coach and social worker in Newton, Mass. He suggests balancing party planning and online shopping with moments of human connection. Activities like reading to a child, meeting a friend for a walk, or taking a moment to call a family member, are ways to express love and care and can keep us emotionally grounded.

    While the idea of offering loved ones the gift of our time may pale in comparison to giving them a generous present, recent research shows shared human experiences can tighten social bonds. Despite personality differences，most people agree on what makes us feel loved—the presence of our loved ones.

    After decades of playing catch-up with the U.S. and Russian space programs, China did something neither nation nor any other had done this December: land a spaceship on the dark side of the moon.

    Strictly speaking, of course, the moon has no dark side. But because of the way it orbits Earth, our natural satellite shows us only one side－the other is hidden from our view. No one even saw the far side until 1959, when the Soviet Luna 3 spaceship flew around for a look and sent back photos. No astronaut or spaceship went there until this December, when the China National Space Agency (CNSA) launched a 2,500-pound lander called Chang'e-4 to the southern end of the lunar far side.

    Chang'e-4 operated a small rover (探测车) to survey the geography there for the first time ever. By examining the geography of its landing area, Chang'e-4 could solve longstanding puzzles about the moon, including how it formed 4.5 billion years ago. Chang'e-4 also carried a very small lunar biosphere (生态圈) containing silkworm eggs and a tiny greenhouse designed to grow potatoes in order to study the growth of the seeds on the moon.

    Besides Chang'e-4, China plans to launch Chang'e-5 in 2019. Its mission will be to gather moon rocks using an orbiter, a lander or collector, an ascent stage (上升器) and a capsule that will separate from the orbiter and return the rocks to the earth. ―With these missions, the Chinese will have shown complete mastery of flight in the space between the earth and the moon, said Paul Spudis, an experienced lunar researcher based in Houston.

    CNSA has already outlined ideas for Chinese astronauts to follow the robots to the moon. Pei Zhaoyu, deputy director of CNSA's Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center, told that China plans a permanent robotic lunar station in about 10 years and suggested a human presence on the moon another decade or so after that. Spudis said China's ambitious Chang'e-4 and Chang'e-5 missions should send human's plans for lunar return into rapid development.

    I was desperately nervous about becoming car-free. But eight months ago our car was hit by a passing vehicle and it was destroyed. No problem, I thought: we'll buy another. But the insurance payout didn't even begin to cover the costs of buying a new car－I worked out that, with the loan, we'd need plus petrol, insurance, parking permits and tax, we would make a payment as much as £600 a month.

    And that's when I had my fancy idea. Why not just give up having a car at all? I live in London. We have a railway station behind our house, a tube station 10 minutes' walk away, and a bus stop at the end of the street. A new car club had just opened in our area, and one of its shiny little red Peugeots was parked nearby. If any family in Britain could live without a car, I reasoned, then surely we were that family.

    But my new car-free idea, sadly, wasn't shared by my family. My teenage daughters were horrified. What would their friends think about our family being "too poor to afford a car"? (I wasn't that bothered what they thought, and I suggested the girls should take the same approach.)

    My friends, too, were astonished at our plan. What would happen if someone got seriously ill overnight and needed to go to hospital? (an ambulance) How would the children get to and from their many events? (buses and trains) People smiled as though this was another of my mad ideas, before saying they were sure I'd soon realize that a car was a necessity.

    Eight months on, I wonder whether we'll ever own a car again. The idea that you "have to" own a car, especially if you live in a city, is all in the mind. I live—and many other citizens do too—in a place that has never been better served by public transport, and yet car ownership has never been higher. We worry about rising car costs, but we'd be better off asking something much more basic: do I really need a car? Certainly the answer is no, and I'm a lot richer because I dared to ask the question.

Blameless

    I was a freshman in college when I met the Whites. They were completely different from my own family, yet I felt at home with them immediately. Jane White and I became friends at school, and her family welcomed me like a long-lost cousin.

    In my family, it was always important to place blame when anything bad happened.

    "Who did this?" my mother would scream about a dirty kitchen.

    "This is all your fault, Katharine," my father would insist when the cat got out or the dishwasher broke.

    From the time we were little, my sister, brothers and I told on each other. We set a place for blame at the dinner table.

    But the Whites didn't worry about who had done what. They picked up the pieces and moved on with their lives. The beauty of this was driven home to me the summer Jane died.

    In July, the White sisters and I decided to take a car trip from their home in Florida to New York. The two older sisters, Sarah and Jane, were college students, and the youngest, Amy, had recently turned sixteen. Proud of having a new driver's license, Amy was excited about practicing her driving on the trip. She showed off her license to everyone she met.

    The big sisters shared the driving of Sarah's new car during the first part of the trip, but when they reached less crowded areas, they let Amy take over. Somewhere in South Carolina, we pulled off the highway to eat. After lunch, Amy got behind the wheel. She came to a crossroads with a stop sign. Whether she was nervous or just didn't see the sign no one would ever know, but Amy continued into the crossroads without stopping. The driver of a large truck, unable to stop in time, ran into our car.

    Jane was killed immediately.

    I was slightly injured. The most difficult thing that I've ever done was to call the Whites to tell them about the accident and that Jane had died. Painful as it was for me to lose a good friend, I knew that it was far worse for them to lose a child.

    When Mr. and Mrs. White arrived at the hospital, they found their two daughters sharing a room. Sarah had a few cuts on the head; Amy's leg was broken. They hugged us all and cried tears of sadness and of joy at seeing their daughters. They wiped away the girls' tears and made a few jokes at Amy as she learned to use her crutches(拐杖).

    To both of their daughters, and especially to Amy, over and over they simply said, "We're so glad that you're alive."

    I was astonished. No blame. No accusations.

    Later, I asked the Whites why they never talked about the fact that Amy was driving and had run a stop sign.

    Mrs. White said, "Jane's gone, and we miss her terribly. Nothing we say or do will ever bring her back. But Amy has her whole life ahead of her. How can she lead a full and happy life if she feels we blame her for her sister's death? "

    They were right. Amy graduated from the University of California and got married several years ago. She works as a teacher of learning-disabled students. She's also a mother of two little girls of her own, the oldest named Jane.