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Days Gone By

Date: Feb 28 2006

Intro

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2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

There’s a popular saying that goes: “If you don’t know history, you’re condemned to repeat it.”

A lot of things happened on this day in history: The U.S. Republican Party was founded, Michael Jackson won a bunch of awards for his hit album Thriller, and the gold craze began in California.

Listen to Taylor and I chit chat about this day in history.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Dave

Taylor

Dave: Are you a history buff?

Taylor: I enjoy learning about anything.

Dave: Yeah.

Taylor: I really like history. I like to know, not dates and “who’s who,” but I like to know the general idea of things that have happened.

Dave: I like know what’s happened on this day. There are a couple of web sites where you can go and find out, you know, key things that have happened on this day in history.

Taylor: I believe Wikipedia does that.

Dave: Oh, do they? The History Channel as well. Today was the, um, I think it was 1849.

Taylor: “The Forty-Niners.”

Dave: Oh yeah, right. “The Forty-Niners.” Was the start of the California Gold Rush.

Taylor: Yeah. I have some specific memories about celebrating this as a kind of day in elementary school. We would all go up to this park and, ah, they would throw gold-looking rocks all around this big green field, and we were sent out to find the gold rocks, imitating “The Forty-Niners” before us.

Dave: That’s cool.

Taylor: What else happened today?

Dave: Today in history. Um, so the web site said that this is also the day that the Republican Party was founded. Also, this was Michael Jackson, his album Thriller – one of his best albums – ...

Taylor: Definitely.

Dave: ...um, won eight Grammy Awards in, what was it, ‘84.

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Discussion

The California Gold Rush began in late 1848 soon after the New York Herald ran an article about people finding gold in California. Great numbers of people rushed to California in search of gold and riches. These people were called “Forty-Niners” or “49ers” because they arrived in California in 1849.

While some people did find a lot of gold and became very wealthy, most people were not so lucky. They wound up penniless and were forced to take dead end jobs to pay off their debts.

To find out what else happened on this day in history, check out this site:

History Channel