 In many middle Eastern countries, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, camel racing is a very popular sport.  The riders, or jockeys, in most camel races are children because a camel can run faster carrying a child than it could carrying an adult.

 Unfortunately, camel racing is very dangerous as well. Every year, child jockeys are hurt in the camel races, sometimes very seriously.  Soon, however, that will no longer be true. Scientists are building robot jockeys to race the camels.

 The robots are just as small and light as children, and racers control them by remote control.  Over the next few years, most Middle Eastern countries will probably switch to using the robot jockeys. This way they can enjoy their sport without endangering and children.

 Most plants get their food from the ground and from sunlight. They do not “eat” in the same way that we do. But some plants actually do eat like us.  Venus flytraps eat insects. This plant has big, open leaves which have tiny hairs on them. When an insect touches the hairs, the plant knows there is an insect on it, and the leaf closes around the insect.

 With the insect trapped inside, the plant begins to eat the insect. This takes about a week because the plant has no mouth.  Instead, the plant uses an acid to melt the insect. Venus flytraps need to eat insects because they usually live in poor soil and do not get enough food from the ground.

 One of the most famous men in early American history is Benjamin Franklin. Franklin was a man with many talents. He started as a printer.  At first, he only had a small print shop, but with his hard work and intelligence it quickly grew. By the time Franklin was 43, he was a rich man.

 No longer in need of money, he retired from business, but he didn’t stop working. He worked for years as a scientist and inventor, and made many important discoveries.  Franklin’s most important work, however, came in the 1770s, when the American colonies were growing tired of British control.

 Franklin was an important leader for the colonists. He helped write the Declaration of Independence. During the American Revolution he spent much of his time in France persuading the French to help the colonists in their war.

 The town of Wiltshire in southern England has one of the world’s greatest mysteries. It is a huge ring of stones called Stonehenge. We don’t know much about Stonehenge except that it was built from 2900 B.C. to 1600 B.C  Stonehenge has huge stone blocks, some of which weigh as much as 50 tons. How were the builders of Stonehenge able to move such huge blocks?

 To add to they mystery, the stones do not come from anywhere near Stonehenge, but rather, from many miles away.  Another amazing aspect of Stonehenge is that the blocks are put in special places. On the longest day of summer and the shortest day of winter. The sun hits the stones in a special way. This makes scientists think that Stonehenge was used as a kind of calendar.

 World War II ended in the summer of 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. But the end of the war did not make the Earth a safer place. It began the Nuclear Age. The Nuclear Age was a frightening time because any new war could include atomic bombs.

 Both of the superpowers, the United States and Russia, had enough atomic bombs to destroy the Earth. People in the 1950s and 60s were well aware of this and lived in fear of nuclear war.  Many Americans at that time built bomb shelters. Bomb shelters were rooms under the ground which people built to save themselves in a nuclear war.

 They kept months of food and water in their bomb shelters because it would not be safe to eat plants after a nuclear war. Most of the bomb shelters were too small to actually save people in a nuclear war, but they made people feel a little bit safer.

 Tornadoes are perhaps the strongest storms on Earth. With winds of up to 300 miles per hour, tornadoes can cause a lot of damage. In the United States, there is an average of 800 tornadoes each year. Most of them are in “tornado alley,” the area of low, flat land between Texas and Nebraska.  The United States, because of its location, has more tornadoes than any other country.

 As warm, moist air comes up from Mexico and cold air comes down from Canada, they meet above tornado alley.  Tornadoes are very dangerous because there is little warning, and people do not have much time to find a safe place. TV stations often give tornado warnings, but even with modern technology, the warning time is usually only about 12 minutes.

 Did you know that the biggest flying vehicle in history was not an airplane? It was an airship. Airships, or zeppelins as they were commonly known, were like blimps, but they were much bigger.  The biggest airship in history was the Hindenburg. The Hindenburg was huge, only a little bit smaller than the Titanic. Like the Titanic, it has a sad story.

 When Germans built the Hindenburg in the 1930s, they wanted to fill the Hindenburg with helium, because helium does not catch fire. However, the United States is the only significant source of helium in the world, and they would not sell any to the Germans. They feared the Germans would use the Hindenburg as a weapon of war, as they had done with other zeppelins in World War I.

 So the Germans had to use hydrogen instead. The Germans knew that they had to be much more careful with hydrogen than helium.  They took all matches and lighters from the passengers before the beginning of the trip. Although they were careful, the Hindenburg caught fire on its first flight, and thirty-six people died. After that, no one wanted to fly in airships anymore.

 The marathon, the longest and most famous running race, has a long and interesting history. In the 4 th century B.C., the Persians decided to attack Athens, a famous Greek city. Athens needed help, so they sent their best runner, Phidippes, to Sparta, another Greek city. It was 140 miles away, but Phidippes ran this distance in 36 hours.

 Unfortunately, the Spartans could not help Athens, so Phidippes ran back to Athens, another 140 miles, to give them the bad news. With no help and little hope of success, the Athenians fought the Persians at Marathon, 26 miles away from Athens. Amazingly, Athens won the battle. Phidippes ran back to Athens to give the king the good news. After that, the Greeks held a race from Marathon to Athens each year to honor Phidippes’ amazing run.

 Today, we still do the same.  However, not everyone believes the story of Phidippes. Not all stories from history are true. The story of Hercules was also a popular story of the Greeks. We may never know if the story of Phidippes is true, but the marathon will always be a famous and popular race.