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Diana — the People's Princess

She was the most watched woman in the world — until tragedy hap­pened in Paris.

She was "beautiful, of course; she was young, and she was royal. In the shock of her death, the world struggled to know the contradictory sources of Diana's appeal; the Princess of Wales was both pop icon and the mother of kings, a very modern woman who owed her fame to me most archaic of institutions. Her secret was that she was all these things. Diana was - capable of profound change — both in her private fife and in her public image.

When she married Charles in 1981, Diana personified the fairy-tale version of royalty. The awkward teenager got the world's most famous bachelor. In time, the public revealed the truth. This was not a marriage lifted from the pages of a romantic novel but an all-too-modern, deeply troubled one.

By the time Charles and Diana separated in 1989, her moment as an icon of young beauty and motherhood was over. What came next was truly surprising. A person who had led a life of privilege turned out to be a com­mon woman, boldly embracing ÀIDS babies," The person who had been raised to stay in her husband's shadow gave a television interview in which she rejoiced in being a «strong woman».

When she first appeared in 1980, she brought light to a drab Old British society that had lost both an empire and its self-confidence. When she died, she had become the symbol of the New British — stylish, cosmo­politan, liking the town but hating the country. She could change other people's attitudes.

«She was the People's Princess», said Tony Blair, Britain's Prime Minister, «and that's how she will remain in our hearts and memory forever»,

 

 

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The Dinosaurs

The dinosaurs were around for about 150 million years altogether, but about 65 million years ago they all disappeared quite quickly, along with quite a few other land and sea animals. Now there are three main theories about why they disappeared.

Most scientists today believe that a giant meteorite from space hit the earth. They say that this caused huge dust clouds to rise up and block the sunlight. As a result, all the plants died and the dinosaurs soon starved or froze to death.

Others believe that the climate changed a lot because the continents were moving around, so that the summers got hotter and the winters colder. They think that the dinosaurs had such big problems with these changes in temperature that they died.

Some people think that a new, poisonous plant appeared which killed dinosaurs. As a result, of course, the meat-eating dinosaurs had no food either, so they died too.

There were different kinds of dinosaurs -Compsognathus stood on two strong legs and had shorter arms with two sharp claws. It had a head like a snake and a long tail. It was a lot smaller than humans, about as small as a chicken: sixty centimetres tall and weighed five and a half kilos, but it was not a gentle creature. It lived all over the world except in Antarctica. Its sharp teeth mean that it ate meat - insects and lizards. It was a very fast runner. Pteranodon was a huge flying reptile. Its giant wings were bigger than its small body. It had a long beak and its head was a very strange shape. Many years ago they lived in Europe, Asia and North America. They preferred to live near water because they ate fish. They had very small bodies - about the same size as a turkey. They were very light, too. Velociraptor had a very long tail. It used its strong legs and long arms to attack other dinosaurs. It had very sharp claws and was taller than humans. Velociraptors lived in Asia and ate small animals. They were medium-size dinosaurs and weighed about forty-five kilos. They were strong and very fast runners. They used their large claws to catch their food. Tyrannosauruswas longer than a bus and taller than a house. It ate other dinosaurs, using its sharp teeth and strong jaws to kill them. It had very short arms. It was the king of the dinosaurs. Tyrannosaurus was probably scarier than any other dinosaur. They lived in North America and East Asia where they used to eat other big dinosaurs. They were tall, about six metres and very heavy too.



 

 

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Date: 2015-12-24; view: 1112


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