1. Look at the pictures of two men. What can you say about them judging by the way they look? Do you know any of them? If yes, whom? Exchange your opinions in class.

2. You are going to listen to a fiction story about an event in the lives of two famous people of Britain. Look at the phrases below. Can you use them to predict what you are going to hear?

Discuss your ideas in class.

poor Scottish farmer, to earn a living, a nearby bog, a cry for help, a scared boy, a slow and terrifying death, an elegantly dressed man, I cant accept payment, I'll make you a deal, graduated from St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London

3. Listen to the story and find out if you were right. Answer the following questions.

1) Who were those two famous British? What do you know about them?

2) What was the trouble with the boy?

3) What was the difference in the social status of the two fathers?

4) What did the boy’s father offer the farmer?

5) How did the boy’s father thank for saving his son’s life?

4. Use the phrases from ex. 2 to reconstruct the story.

Did you know?

The British naturalist Charles Darwin was the first person to propose the theories of evolution and natural selection.

5. Sir Alexander Fleming is world known for discovering penicillin. Do you know that this discovery was made accidentally? What role do you think accident plays in scientific research? Why? Exchange your ideas with other students.

6. Read a brief article about one of the accidental discoveries that changed the world. Think, if it was just pure luck that Percy Spencer made the discovery while he was not alone in the laboratory to experience the same effects. Share your ideas and explain your point.

Of all the new, ultra-modern, sci-fi kitchen stuff of the future, few are as notable as the microwave oven. Baking a potato in eight minutes must have seemed beyond imagination before this. The technology that promised to be revolution in the load on housewives everywhere, not to mention bachelors, was discovered in the 1940s when the U.S. company Raytheon was working on military magnetron tubes used in radars. Percy Spencer, an engineer at the company, was working on a magnetron when he noticed that a candy bar in his pocket had started to melt. Spencer came up with the idea that it was due to the microwaves that the magnetron emitted. So, he developed a box for cooking and found that indeed, when food was placed in the box with the microwave energy, it cooked quickly. The first microwave oven was as large as a room and cost a fortune. It was not until 1967 that the first home microwave oven was introduced.

7. Do you know any other world known inventions that we use in our everyday life which were made by accident? Make your own research and prepare a brief presentation about one of those to give a talk in class.