I keep my fingers crossed :)

My dear students I keep my fingers crossed for you!!!!
Good luck !!!

Polish leader dies in plane crash

Sirens and bells sounded as victims of the plane crash were remembered

The body of Polish President Lech Kaczynski - who died along with 95 others when their plane crashed in Russia - has arrived back in Warsaw.

It is being given full military honours before taken to the president's palace, where people have been paying tribute.

The president, military chiefs and MPs were due to attend a memorial for a World War II massacre when their plane crashed near Smolensk on Saturday.

Russian officials say the pilots were warned that they were flying too low.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin earlier attended a memorial service for the victims at the crash site, near the city of Smolensk.

He has said he would personally oversee the investigation into the disaster, promising to find out what happened as soon as possible.

Correspondents say the plane was flying too low and clipped some trees as it approached the runway in thick fog.

A Russian general said air traffic controllers had repeatedly urged the pilots to pull up. Investigators from the Russian emergencies ministry are sifting through the debris for any evidence of mechanical failure.

Church services

No-one survived Saturday's crash, and acting Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski has called for a week's mourning for the dead.

He and Prime Minister Donald Tusk were among the dignitaries to receive Mr Kaczynski's coffin at Warsaw military airport after its repatriation from Smolensk.

After a short religious ceremony, the coffin was due to be driven under military escort to the presidential palace where it will be available for public viewing.

Church services to honour their memory have been held across the country, as has a two-minute tribute, with church bells and police sirens.

The president's twin brother Jaroslaw, the country's former prime minister, travelled to Russia to help identify his body.

The brothers' strong nationalist, conservative agenda divided opinion in Poland, but the BBC's Adam Easton in Warsaw says the president's supporters and opponents have joined together in paying tribute to him.

The president's body was given a full military honours at Warsaw airport

Boguslaw Staron, a 70-year-old from Warsaw, described Mr Kaczynski as "a great patriot".

"He taught Poles how to respect our traditions, how to fight for our dignity, and he made his sacrifice there at that tragic place," he said.

Poles gathered in town squares and in the streets at midday (1000 GMT) and stood silently to mark the tragedy, as church bells rang and emergency sirens wailed around them.

The president had been flying to Russia along with his wife, the heads of the army and navy, MPs and senior historians to mark 70 years since Soviet forces massacred more than 20,000 Poles near Katyn.

Russia has declared Monday a day of mourning and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who visited the crash site with Polish counterpart Donald Tusk, said he would oversee the inquiry.

Russian and Polish investigators have recovered the flight-data recorders and are carrying out a joint inquiry.

They are looking into the possibility that pilots ignored warnings that they were approaching Smolensk too low.

Experts have also suggested that the age and condition of the Polish president's Soviet-era Tupolev 154 plane could have played a part in the accident.

Witnesses have described seeing the plane's wing hitting treetops in thick fog before it came down in a forest.

Mr Kaczynski was a controversial figure in Polish politics.

He was active in the Solidarity movement that helped bring an end to Communist rule, but later fell out with Solidarity leader Lech Walesa.

He advocated traditional Catholic values, opposed rapid free-market reforms and favoured retaining social welfare programmes.

As president, he held fewer powers than the prime minister but retained a significant say in foreign policy. He could veto new laws and frequently blocked government reforms.

from bbc

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taken from here

FAMOUS HOAXES

1) War of the Worlds

Known for his flair for the dramatic, Orson Welles, with members of his Mercury Theatre Company, incited mass hysteria and earned themselves national fame on October 30, 1938, when they performed an adaptation of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds on their CBS radio show. The players used a news-broadcast format and announced that visitors from Mars had invaded New Jersey. Thousands of panicked New Jersey citizens fainted, fled their homes, and overflowed telephone lines when they heard Welles say, "Good heavens, something's wiggling out of the shadow like a gray snake. I can see the thing's body now. It's large, large as a bear. It glistens like wet leather." Welles had reportedly expected a frenzied reaction, though he said, "the size of it was flabbergasting."

flair - talent
to incite - wznieść
to wiggle out - wić się
to glisten - zalśnić
flabbergasting - wprawiający w osłupienie


2) Big Ben

The BBC has kept up a tradition of April Foolery ever since. In 1980, it announced that the clock faces on Big Ben -- a London landmark in the clock tower of West minister Palace -- would be replaced with digital displays, to keep up with modern technology. They were flooded with calls of protest.

to announce - ogłaszać
landmark - charakterystyczny obiekt
to keep up with - nadążyć za

History of April Fool's Day

History of April Fool's Day
Many of the ancient cultures such as Romans and Hindus and the medieval Europeans used to celebrate New Year's Day on sometime near the vernal equinox that could range from March 20th to April 5th. In the Julian calendar, April 1st was designated as the New Year's Day and was so celebrated till 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII ordered the adoption of the new Gregorian Calendar, which specified January 1st as the New Year's Day. However, due to slow communications and resistance of people to change their traditions, many people continued to celebrate New Year's Day as before on 1st of April. Scottish only adopted the new calendar in 1660, Germans, Danish and Norwegians in 1700 and English in 1752.

Many French resisted the change and neoiites dubbed them as fools and played pranks on them. They started sending them on 'fool's errands', sent them the fake invitations for parties and tricked them into believing something false. The victims were called 'Poisson d'Avril' or 'April Fish' as the naïve fish gets caught easily and children would often tag of a fish's picture on someone's back. Thus, April Fool's Day originated and was popularly celebrated in England and in the American colonies. It evolved and was caught on quickly throughout the world to trick each other and have fun. Even today, people play pranks on each other on this day in the memory of those tradition-obsessed 'fools'.

Perhaps the best illustration of the April Fool's Pranks of the 19th century is the Thomas Nast's illustration, originally published in the April 2, 1864 issue of Harper's Weekly. It highlights the various pranks that were popularly played at the time with its caption as 'All Fool's Day'. Some of the pranks shown here include women visiting an older man wearing beards and moustaches, Civil War Soldiers tricking each other such as a soldier barring the view by holding his hand on in front of the binoculars of a friend and a sailor doing the same by holding his hat over the telescope of a friend. The other tricks include a young boy tying a string on the dress of a little girl while a schoolteacher is shown with the sign of 'Old Fool' on his back.

Glossary:
ancient - starożytny
medieval - średniowieczny
the vernal equinox - zrównanie wiosenne, równonoc wiosenna
to be designated - byc określonym
Pope - papież
to dub - nazywać
fool - głupiec
to play pranks - płatać figle, zrobić komuś psikusa
fool's errand - próżny trud
to tag - oznaczyć


from:
the webpage