The US Open has been in existence for more than 120 years. The first tournament (锦标赛) was held in 1881 at the Newport Casino. It was called the US National Singles Championship. Entry was limited to only those clubs which were members of the United States National Lawn Tennis Association, and the competitors were all male, competing in both singles and doubles. Richard Sears won the men’s championship and he went on to win the next six men’s singles championships.

In 1875, the All England Croquet Club was troubled financially due to declining membership. A new sport called lawn tennis was gaining fast in popularity and taking away the members. Two years later, a new roller was needed for maintaining its lawns so the club proposed to hold a tournament to raise money. Twenty-two players entered that first Wimbledon tournament which was won by Spencer Gore in straight sets over W. C. Marshall. Two hundred spectators each paid a shilling to watch the final game, enabling the club to buy the needed roller plus some extra cash.

The very first French Championship was held way back in 1891, and the tournament has since grown into one of the four tennis Grand Slam tournaments we know today. The first competition was a one-day national championship which was won by a British. The competition was poorly attended by world class players. It took 24 years before it became fully international and an accepted tennis grand slam event (大满贯赛事). After the First World War, French tennis was achieving stature (名声). Suzanne Lenglen was the predominant French player, winning the championships six times between 1920 and 1926.

The very first tennis tournament ever played in Australia was held in January 1880, on the courts of the Melbourne Cricket Club. In 1905, the Australian Open was established as the Australasian Tennis Championship and was played at the Warehouseman's Cricket Ground in Melbourne. It became the Australian Championship in 1927 and the Australian Open in 1969. Women’s events were added in 1922.

Miep Gies, the woman who hid the Dutch girl Anne Frank’s diary from the Nazis to become one of the world’s most-read books, died after a brief illness at the age of 100.

It was Gies who guarded Anne’s diary, and presented it to the girl’s father, Otto, when he returned from the Auschwitz concentration camp(奥斯威辛集中营) at the end of World War Ⅱ—the only one of his family to survive.

In her diary, Anne Frank wrote about her teenage life hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam from 1942 to 1944, when the Nazi police discovered her and her family’s hiding place. The diary, first published in 1947, has been translated into 70 languages.

Anne Frank expressed a great wish to live on after her death. Miep Gies saw it as her duty to help in making this happen.

Born in Vienna in 1909, Gies moved to the Netherlands at the age of 11. In 1933, she began working for Otto Frank at his trading company. At great risk to her own safety, she and four other helpers brought food and supplies to the Frank family hiding in a secret office building for more than two years.

When she turned 100, Gies tried to play down her own role. “I’m not a hero,” she said. “It wasn’t something I planned in advance. I simply did what I could to help.”

Every day she received letters from all over the world with questions about her relationship with Anne Frank and her role as a helper. Gies received many honors for her role, including from the Netherlands, Germany and Israel.

In 1803, the United States acquired a huge new piece of land called the Louisiana Territory. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were given the job of leading an expedition to collect data about this uncharted territory. President Thomas Jefferson gave Lewis and Clark three tasks for the journey: Find an all-water route to the Pacific Ocean, make friends with the Native Americans along the way, and gather detailed information about the plants, animals, landforms (地形), and climate of the area.

In order to discover if there was an all-water route to the Pacific Ocean, Lewis and Clark attempted to travel up the Mississippi River by boat. In this way, they hoped that they would eventually reach the Pacific. Ultimately, the explorers discovered the Rocky Mountains and the Continental Divide, but not the Pacific Ocean. The hope for an all-water route from the East to the Pacific would have to be abandoned.

Lewis and Clark’s second task was to make friends with Native Americans in the area. They packed hundreds of pounds of gifts for the indigenous people, including beads, sewing needles, cloth, yarn, and knives. Their intention was to use these items as offerings of peace and good faith. However, many tribes were hostile. They felt threatened by the Americans’ presence and refused to communicate with them. Other tribes were more welcoming and aided the explorers in finding food and navigating the new region.

The explorers’ final task was extensive and ongoing. Lewis and Clark had to take detailed notes about the landforms and climate of the different areas through which they travelled. President Jefferson also wanted samples of notable plant and animal life. They prepared animal fur and plant samples to send back to the president throughout the trip. They also kept individual journals with detailed descriptions and drawings of the environment and terrain (地势).

Up the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, across the Great Plains, over the Rockies, down the Columbia River, and to the Pacific Ocean, Lewis and Clark travelled. After 3 years, Jefferson received a letter from Lewis stating, “It is with great pleasure that I announced to you the safe arrival of myself and my partner. In obedience to your orders, we have penetrated (穿过)the continent of North America to the Pacific Ocean.”