Никоненко Тамара Петрівна

1. When Edison was a boy of fifteen, he worked as a telegraph manager.
2. But at night there was much work and the telegraph operators usually worked hard.
3. The boss ordered each operator to give a signal every ten minutes to show that he was awake.
4. Edison’s signals always came at the same time, at the beginning of each new hour.
5. One night the boss sent his mother to see how well the boy was working.
6. So one day the boss sent an inspector to see how well the boy was working.
7. When the inspector opened the door, he saw Edison sleeping in his chair.
8. The inspector saw a block with a mechanism on the table.
9. The inspector wanted the boy to show how the mechanism could work.
10. Edison awoke and was told that he had lost his job.
11. This story explains why the first of Edison’s many inventions was patented.

   Once an Englishman went to the seashore for his summer holidays. He asked his housekeeper to post him all letters that she would receive during his absence. She promised him to do that.
   The Englishman rested very well. A month passed but he received no letters. He thought it strange and he telephoned his housekeeper: “Why didn’t you post me my letters?” “Because you didn’t leave me the key of the letter-box,” was the answer.
   The Englishman apologized and promised to send her the key. In some days he put the key into an envelope, wrote down his address on it and posted the letter. Another month was passing but still he didn’t receive any letters. When at the end of the month he came back home he spoke angrily with his housekeeper. “But what could I do?,” asked the poor woman. “The key which you posted was in the locked letter-box too”.

1. William Caxton is the first English printer.
2. He was born in London.
3. His father was a doctor.
4. William Caxton didn’t want to become a farmer.
5. William worked in an office which traveled to different countries.
6.  William liked to read new books which were printed in America.
7. When William was thirty he started his own business in Belgium.
8. Then he left his business and began to read French books.
9. He began interested in printing and at last he learned it.
10. William Caxton brought his printing press to Washington.
11. All people liked his work very much.
12. William Caxton printed his first book in 1477.
13. It was not the first book printed in English language.
14. William Caxton printed about fifty books.
15. He translated thirty books from French.