But it was not the pagan people Muhammad had come to destroy. It was their Gods. He raised his staff and the tribal Gods of his ancestors smashed into dust. When Muhammad entered Mecca and entered the shrine and destroyed the idols of the shrine, thi

发表于:2019-02-25 / 阅读(98) / 评论(0) 分类 英语听力:文化博览2008年

By now, the empire was larger than Rome. It stretched from Morocco in the west to the Indus River in the east where the border of India is today. How had it happened that so small an army could conquer an area so large, so fast, so easily? Islams suc

发表于:2019-02-25 / 阅读(82) / 评论(0) 分类 英语听力:文化博览2008年

With Byzantine artisans, they had decorated it with golden mosaics of an Islamic paradise. The Great Mosque of Damascus would become a model for new mosques to come all across the empire. The Arabs transformed their conquered lands, maintaining, impr

发表于:2019-02-25 / 阅读(67) / 评论(0) 分类 英语听力:文化博览2008年

Each man stands inside his own mysterious inner space, for each one of them was occupied. And from that space they look outwards, from the soul towards the heavens. As you might expect, if you should move around them, solid bulk of marble in the huma

发表于:2019-02-25 / 阅读(163) / 评论(0) 分类 英语听力:文化博览2008年

Squares become circles, circles octagons, and all around a single central point. Space spins into ever smaller spaces. It's as perfectly mysterious as the finest natural crystal. The walls, the columns, seem to be nothing more than an illusion, and s

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(168) / 评论(0) 分类 英语听力:文化博览2008年

Praying together is a good thing. It cements the idea of belonging to a movement, to a religion, to an organization, to a community. The result is something very, very powerful, even to watch, even for a non-believer or someone from another religion.

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(73) / 评论(0) 分类 英语听力:文化博览2008年

The man there is Justinian, the emperor who 200 years after Constantine completely remade the Roman Empire, the man who made Byzantium. He was a man, they said, who was gentle and approachable, a man who never showed his anger, a man who in the quiet

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(59) / 评论(0) 分类 英语听力:文化博览2008年

Without consulting Castro or Che, Khrushchev makes a deal with Kennedy. America would never invade Cuba. We will take our missiles out. To Fidel Castro and Che, it is an act of absolute betrayal. And it was Che who was the first Cuban official face t

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(90) / 评论(0) 分类 英语听力:文化博览2008年

And this wandering around our 'America with a capital A' has changed me more than I thought. When he finished medical school, he said, See, you thought I couldnt do it, but I graduated. So pack your bags, because we're gonna be leaving soon. Ernesto

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(55) / 评论(0) 分类 英语听力:文化博览2008年

This is not something that is fly-by-night. This is something big and important. Islam has come to stay. In just a hundred years, Muhammads vision had transformed the spiritual and political map of the world. And his followers had established an empi

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(89) / 评论(0) 分类 英语听力:文化博览2008年

The Fifth Symphony is really something absolutely new. The symphony starts with da da da dathats no music, it is political agitation, so it is like a manifestation of ideas. Erits not good the way we live, its not good, and, then you, umat one moment

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(54) / 评论(0) 分类 英语听力:文化博览2008年

Vienna at that time was a marvelous place for young musicians to go to. It has always been a city of pleasure or frivolity right back to the middle ages. The city was the most crowded city in Europe at the time. It had a population of probably around

发表于:2019-02-08 / 阅读(65) / 评论(0) 分类 英语听力:文化博览2008年

Such mysterious cargos, such magic marbles from across the empire, now sailed the seas and came to the holy city of Byzantium to be gathered up upon the site of the imperial communion. This is the finished dream, the tense climax of all of ancient en

发表于:2019-02-05 / 阅读(77) / 评论(0) 分类 英语听力:文化博览2008年

But the visitors are not what they seem. Zhe Shuzheng and her son live nearby. Zhe has been caring for her local alligators for over 20 years, so she had a fair idea when the eggs were likely to hatch. Back home, she's built a pond, surrounded by net

发表于:2019-02-05 / 阅读(47) / 评论(0) 分类 英语听力:文化博览2008年

The Chinese moccasin is an ambush predator with a deadly bite. This is one of China's largest and most feared venomous snakes. But the monkeys have lived alongside these dangerous serpents for thousands of years. They use this specific alarm call to

发表于:2019-02-05 / 阅读(62) / 评论(0) 分类 英语听力:文化博览2008年

Smart ecology like this is what enables China to be largely self-sufficient in food even today. Back in the village, Yang has his own smokehouse, where he preserves his fish ready for market. Longshan carp have unusually soft scales and a very delica

发表于:2019-02-05 / 阅读(68) / 评论(0) 分类 英语听力:文化博览2008年

But there was a problem for the rubber growers. While Yunnans unique natural forests can survive on the valley slopes which stretch to the north, just one severe frost will kill off these delicate rubber trees. So Yunnans terrain puts a limit on how

发表于:2019-02-05 / 阅读(69) / 评论(0) 分类 英语听力:文化博览2008年

As the flower's heat increases, a cloud of odor rises up. The foul perfume carries far and wide. It doesn't go unnoticed. Carrion beetles arrive on the scene. The beetles come in search of a feast of warm decaying flesh, but they've been tricked. Sli

发表于:2019-02-05 / 阅读(56) / 评论(0) 分类 英语听力:文化博览2008年

A hornet sting is agony, but for now its distracted, intent on cutting away a piece of grasshopper, small enough to carry back home. Success! The white feather hardly slows the hornet, and more importantly, it can be seen. Now the hunter is the hunte

发表于:2019-02-05 / 阅读(52) / 评论(0) 分类 英语听力:文化博览2008年

Living on a remote mountain range in south central Yunnan is one of the few remaining wild gibbon populations in China--the black-crested gibbons of Wuliangshan. They are confined to these forest mountains, so remote and steep that few hunters ever c

发表于:2019-02-05 / 阅读(51) / 评论(0) 分类 英语听力:文化博览2008年