Amelia Earhart was born in America in 1897. As a little girl, she could climb trees and catch rats. When she was seven years old, she discovered she was interested in flying. In 1920, Amelia took a plane and knew she had to fly! Just days after that, she took her first flying lesson. Six months later, she bought her own plane!

    A Life-Changing Flight On June 18^th, 1928, Amelia became world-famous because she flew across the Atlantic with others as the first woman. And then she was called the “Queen of the Air”.

Making and Breaking Records Although Amelia was well-known in the flight, she never stopped practicing. In 1932, she became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic by herself, and later in 1935, she was the first person to fly over the Pacific from Hawaii to California by herself.

    The Last Flight When her 40th birthday was coming, Amelia prepared for her biggest challenge-an around-the-world flight. On June 1, 1937, she began her 46, 671-kilometer flight. Something unlucky happened on June 29. She never came back again.

    Every morning, a woman baked bread for her and her family and an extra piece for a hungry passer-by. She would always put the extra piece of bread on the window sill.

    She noticed that a hunchback(驼背)came every day and took the extra piece. Instead of saying thanks to her, he would say, “The bad you do remains with you. The good you do comes back to you!"

    This went on, day after day. Finally, the woman got very angry. ”He is so impolite!” she said to herself.

    One day, she added some poison to the piece of bread she prepared for him! When she was about to put the piece of bread on the window sill, she stopped. “What am I doing?” she said. Immediately, she threw the bread into the fire, prepared another one and put it on the window sill.

As usual, the hunchback came, picked up the bread and said those words to her.

    That evening, there was a knock on the door. It was the woman's son, hungry and weak.

    Looking at his mother he said, “Mom, I was too hungry to walk any further a mile away. But just then, an old hunchback was kind enough to give me a piece of bread.”

    Then the woman realized the meaning of the words, “The bad you do remains with you. The good you do comes back to you!”

    One year, a college in the United States announced that it would offer a lot of money for the pure white marigold(金盏花). The high reward attracted so many people, but in the nature, besides golden, the marigold is brown, and it is not easy to get the white one. So after they were excited for a time, many people had forgotten the announcement.

    One normal day after 20 years, the college received a letter and 100 seeds of pure white marigold. It was an old woman of over 70 years old. Some experts in the college doubted it, but in order not to let her down, those seeds finally took root (根）in the earth. The miracle appeared after one year; the field was covered by pure white marigold.

    Therefore, the old woman who was always unknown to the public became a new focus.

    The old woman was a flower-lover. When she read the announcement 20 years ago, she got very excited like others. But her eight children were totally against her decision. After all, a woman who never knew the seed genetics(遗传学) couldn't complete what the experts could never do, so her thought was only a day dream.

    Still, the old woman didn't change her mind and went on working. She planted some of the most common seeds and took good care of them. A year later, when the marigold came out, she chose one faintest(最暗淡的) from those golden and brown flowers and got the best seed. The next year, she again grew them and chose...Day after day, year after year, through many seasons, the old woman's husband died, her children flew far, a lot of things happened in her life, but only the wish to grow the pure white marigold took root in her heart.

    Finally, after 20 years on the day we all know, in the garden she saw a marigold, which was nearly white, but as white as silver or snow.

    A problem even experts couldn't deal with was solved by an old woman who didn't understand genetics. Was it a miracle  (奇迹）?

To take root in the heart, even the most common seed, can grow into a miracle!

    Mr. Brown was going away for a week. Before he left, he said to his son, "if anyone asks for me, you can tell him that your father has been out for doing something, and will be back in a week, then be sure to ask him to sit down for a cup of tea."

    "OK, Dad," said his son. But he was afraid his son couldn't remember this, he wrote these words down on a piece of paper and gave it to him. His son put it into his small pocket, took it out and looked at it every now and then.

    Four days passed, but no one came to see his father. The boy thought that there was no man to come and that the piece of paper was of no more use for him, so he burnt it that evening.

    The next afternoon, someone knocked at the door. The boy opened it. A man was standing at the door and said, "Where is your father?" The boy put his hand into his pocket at once and looked for the piece of paper. He could not find it. He suddenly remembered he had burnt it, so he shouted, "No more."

    The man was very surprised. He asked, "No more? I met your father last week. When did it happen?"

    "Burnt yesterday evening."

    In 1254, Marco Polo was born in Italy, in the city of Venice. At that time Europeans knew almost nothing about other continents(大洲),except some areas of Asia and Africa(非洲)touching the Mediterranean Sea(地中海).

    In 1271. Marco Polo. His uncle. And his father started a journey to China. For four years they travelled on foot and on camels, across the deserts and through the mountains of Central Asia. Finally they arrived at the city of Kublai Khan(可汗),the Mongol(蒙古)ruler of China at that time.

    In China, Marco Polo found people with a very different culture from his own. He saw a new world with lots of wonders. After leaving China, Marco Polo traveled to Japan, Southeastern Asia, India, and Eastern Africa.

    In 1292-two hundred years before Columbus—Marco travelled back home. The stories of China he brought back quickly spread all over Europe.