Columbus was born in 1451 in Genoa of Italy. His father was a wool weaver. When he was in his twenties, he began to make merchant voyages. The farthest countries he (A) reached were Iceland and Guinea back then.

     (B)在那时, 很多欧洲国家变得越来越强大。Their ships reached Africa and Asia. They got gold, silver, silk, tea and (C) __________things. Columbus wanted to make another way to China and India.

    On August 3, 1492, Columbus left Spain and began his first voyage. After two months' (D) hard sailing, on October 12, (E) they got to an island in the Bahamas. On October 28, they reached Cuba. But a few days later, one of his ships left them. Fortunately, the ship that left rejoined them. They went back on March 15,1493. Although they didn't get to rich orient countries, they found a new place that nobody had gone to. Columbus thought it was India and called the islands the West Indies.

    From 1492 (F) __________1504, he completed four voyages. He reached most of the cast of southern America and set up many colonies.

    On May 20,1506, Columbus died because of disease.

I don't know how he things like gold.

My parents a souvenir from the US last week.

    Space travel is nothing new. The first spaceship with a human was sent up1space in 1961. Since then, people have not only travelled to space, 2many of them have also lived there in space stations for some time.

The Soviet Union (苏联) sent the3space station into space in 1971. This space station was called Salyut I. It 4as a place where people could live while they observed space and did experiments. The first group of astronauts lived there for 23 days. The Soviet Union went on to make six more Salyut space stations. At about the same time, the United States had5own space station, called Skylab.

    Astronauts6in these space stations for a short time. However, it wasn't until the late 1980s when the Soviet Union sent the Mir space station that people began to live in space for a7time.

    Living in space stations seems to be fun, but astronauts face many problems. One of them8food. All the9on space stations are put together on Earth and sent there by space shuttle. Because the food has to last a long time, a lot of it has to be stored in cans. The space station does not have a fridge, but it has a cool room to keep fruit and vegetables fresh. Astronauts also eat many other foods10dried meat that do not need special care.