The United States has a high divorce rate: Ap­proximately 1 in every7 2 marriages ends in divorce. One result of this high divorce rate is that many American children live in single­parent families. Although some women wait until their thirties to have their first child, other women become mothers while they are still teenagers. Many […]

The main trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange   The Dutch were the first Europeans to settle Manhattan. To protect themselves from at­tacks, they built a sturdy wooden wall. Al­though it’s now long gone, this wall gave its name to a street in Lower Manhattan and the street, in turn, became synonymous with […]

Early Influences Elvis Presley was bom in 1935, in East Tupelo, Mississippi. His family was poor. They moved to Memphis, Tennessee in search of better opportunities. What influenced Elvis and his music? First, there was his mother Gladys. For his eleventh birthday, Elvis wanted a rifle. Gladys con­vinced him to get a guitar. Then there […]

The River Walk San Antonio is very much a river city. True, the San Antonio River isn’t much of a river; it’s very narrow, only about 50 feet across. Yet it twists and winds its way through a lot of the city (these twists are the reason for its Indian nickname, "drunken-old-man-going- home-at-night"). And alongside […]

Crater Lake Crater Lake, in Oregon, is famous for its clear, blue waters. It is also famous for the way it was formed: About 7,000 years ago, Mount Mazama, a volcano, erupted. Its walls col­lapsed, forming a basin. The basin filled with rainwater and became Crater Lake. This long-ago volcanic eruption probably caused human deaths. […]