"I would never have thought that such a storm would rise from Rome over one simple scrap of paper..." (Martin Luther)

In 1521, Martin Luther appears before the Holy Roman Emperor at Worms, Germany, and is cross-examined about his thoughts on religious reform. Luther goes into hiding soon after.

To learn more about Martin Luther Click on the highlighted text below:

PBS Special on Martin Luther

Martin Luther is the epic tale of the great Protestant revolutionary whose belief in his faith would overthrow the all-powerful Catholic Church and reshape Medieval Europe. Join Luther as he recalls his life, from his initial crisis of faith in a storm-wracked forest that led him to become a monk, to his heady confrontation with the great powers of Europe--Read More

Sir Arthur C Clarke

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, renowed science fiction writer died at age 90.

"The golden age of space is only just beginning... Space travel and space tourism will one day become almost as commonplace as flying to exotic destinations on our own planet."

To listen to a an interview with Sir Arthur click here

International Woman's Day

International Women's Day (8 March) is an occasion marked by women's groups around the world. This date is also commemorated at the United Nations and is designated in many countries as a national holiday. When women on all continents, often divided by national boundaries and by ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic and political differences, come together to celebrate their Day, they can look back to a tradition that represents at least nine decades of struggle for equality, justice, peace and development.

International Women's Day is the story of ordinary women as makers of history; it is rooted in the centuries-old struggle of women to participate in society on an equal footing with men. In ancient Greece, Lysistrata initiated a sexual strike against men in order to end war; during the French Revolution, Parisian women calling for "liberty, equality, fraternity" marched on Versailles to demand women's suffrage.

The idea of an International Women's Day first arose at the turn of the century, which in the industrialized world was a period of expansion and turbulence, booming population growth and radical ideologies. Following is a brief chronology of the most important events:

1909
In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, the first National Woman's Day was observed across the United States on 28 February. Women continued to celebrate it on the last Sunday of that month through 1913.

1910
The Socialist International, meeting in Copenhagen, established a Women's Day, international in character, to honour the movement for women's rights and to assist in achieving universal suffrage for women. The proposal was greeted with unanimous approval by the conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, which included the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament. No fixed date was selected for the observance.

1911
As a result of the decision taken at Copenhagen the previous year, International Women's Day was marked for the first time (19 March) in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, where more than one million women and men attended rallies. In addition to the right to vote and to hold public office, they demanded the right to work, to vocational training and to an end to discrimination on the job.

Less than a week later, on 25 March, the tragic Triangle Fire in New York City took the lives of more than 140 working girls, most of them Italian and Jewish immigrants. This event had a significant impact on labour legislation in the United States, and the working conditions leading up to the disaster were invoked during subsequent observances of International Women's Day.

1913-1914
As part of the peace movement brewing on the eve of World War I, Russian women observed their first International Women's Day on the last Sunday in February 1913. Elsewhere in Europe, on or around 8 March of the following year, women held rallies either to protest the war or to express solidarity with their sisters.

1917
With 2 million Russian soldiers dead in the war, Russian women again chose the last Sunday in February to strike for "bread and peace". Political leaders opposed the timing of the strike, but the women went on anyway. The rest is history: Four days later the Czar was forced to abdicate and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote. That historic Sunday fell on 23 February on the Julian calendar then in use in Russia, but on 8 March on the Gregorian calendar in use elsewhere.

Since those early years, International Women's Day has assumed a new global dimension for women in developed and developing countries alike. The growing international women's movement, which has been strengthened by four global United Nations women's conferences, has helped make the commemoration a rallying point for coordinated efforts to demand women's rights and participation in the political and economic process. Increasingly, International Women's Day is a time to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of women's rights.

The Role of the United Nations
Few causes promoted by the United Nations have generated more intense and widespread support than the campaign to promote and protect the equal rights of women. The Charter of the United Nations, signed in San Francisco in 1945, was the first international agreement to proclaim gender equality as a fundamental human right. Since then, the Organization has helped create a historic legacy of internationally agreed strategies, standards, programmes and goals to advance the status of women worldwide.

Over the years, United Nations action for the advancement of women has taken four clear directions: promotion of legal measures; mobilization of public opinion and international action; training and research, including the compilation of gender desegregated statistics; and direct assistance to disadvantaged groups. Today a central organizing principle of the work of the United Nations is that no enduring solution to society's most threatening social, economic and political problems can be found without the full participation, and the full empowerment, of the world's women.

For more information, contact:
Development Section Department of Public Information Room S-1040, United Nations, New York, NY 10017Email: mediainfo@un.org

kings College Celebrating Christmas

A celebration of Christmas from the Chapel of King's College, Cambridge.

For millions of people, Christmas begins when a single choirboy sings the first verse of "Once in Royal David's City" in the candlelit splendour of the Chapel of King's College Cambridge.

Follow the link below to the BBC to watch the King's College Choir Celebrate Christmas in Lessons amd Carols:
Carols from Kings College

'Unchained Melody' Lyricist Dies at 99

All Things Considered, July 3, 2007 · Lyricist Hy Zaret, who wrote the haunting words to "Unchained Melody," one of the most frequently recorded songs of the 20th century, has died at age 99.

Listen to the full story NPR

50 Years Later, City of Tulsa to Unveil 1957 Plymouth Belvedere

Time capsule with revolutionary car to be opened June 15 as Tulsa celebrates centennial of Oklahoma statehood - Car with design 'three full years ahead' was product of famed Chrysler design team - Big-finned '57s thrust Chrysler into styling leadership

TULSA, Okla., June 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- "Suddenly it's 1960!" That's what the magazine ads proclaimed 50 years ago in announcing the all-new 1957 Plymouth.

With its new highly-acclaimed Torsion-Aire front suspension, push-button Torqueflite automatic transmission and soaring tail fins, the 1957 Plymouth was advertised as "Three Full Years Ahead" of its competition in the low- priced field -- "the only car to break the time barrier." Now, suddenly it's 2007, and the 1957 Plymouth will re-emerge as part of TULSARAMA, the City of Tulsa's celebration of the 100th anniversary of Oklahoma statehood.

On Friday, June 15, the city will unearth a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere buried in a time capsule in front of the county courthouse in downtown Tulsa 50 years ago. The vehicle will belong to the person (or heir) who in 1957 came closest to guessing the city's population in 2007.

(The next opportunity to see a Plymouth emerge from the ground in Tulsa will be in 2037, when the city will unearth a 1997 Prowler buried in Centennial Park as part of a celebration of the city's founding.) The revolutionary design of the 1957 Belvedere was appropriate for the Tulsa time capsule: Oklahoma Golden Jubilee chairman W.A. Anderson declared the finned Plymouth had "the kind of lasting appeal that should be in style 50 years from now."

This revolutionary Plymouth was the work of the styling team assembled in the early 1950s by famed designer Virgil Exner, notes Chrysler senior designer and design historian Jeffrey Godshall.

Hired from Studebaker in 1949, Exner first explored new directions in styling through a series of concept cars -- or as Exner called them, "idea cars." This tradition of concept cars continues with today's Chrysler. After a spate of innovative "idea cars" such as the 1951 Chrysler K310 and the 1953 Chrysler d'Elegance, Exner was given responsibility for the styling of the company's production cars. His first advanced designs in 1955 -- referred to as The Forward Look -- were followed by the "Flight Sweep" cars of 1956, marking the first time an automobile manufacturer applied fins to its entire line of vehicles.

With even larger towering fins, the '57 Plymouth was a stunner, Godshall said.

The extreme lowness of the car, its light-looking roof supported by thin pillars and the big fins gave the exciting new Plymouth the wedge-shaped silhouette that Exner and his staff were looking for -- the same shape used in military aircraft, Gold Cup racing boats and ballistic missiles.

And the fins were functional as well. Contemporary wind tunnel testing proved they reduced the need for steering corrections in strong crosswinds. The new '57s were enthusiastically embraced by a buying public who saw the big fins as a symbol of a future of carefree living, Godshall said. The combination of advanced styling, Torsion-Aire ride and Torqueflite transmission enabled Plymouth to recapture its status among the leaders in auto industry sales.

The big-finned '57 cars established Chrysler -- long known for its pioneering engineering -- as a style leader as well.

This tradition of design leadership was recaptured during the 1990s under design Chief Tom Gale, resulting in innovative vehicles such as the cab- forward design of the Chrysler Concorde and companion sedans.

That leadership in design continues today under the direction of Trevor Creed, Senior Vice President, Product Design Office which has produced a new generation of revolutionary designs such as the Chrysler 300 sedan.

"At Chrysler, we value our company's tradition of producing great American automobile designs," said Creed.

The Walter P. Chrysler Museum in Auburn Hills, MI, exhibits a 1957 Plymouth Fury which shares many of the design characteristics of the Belvedere. For more information, contact Bill Stewart at the Museum at
248-944-0013.

Representatives of Chrysler's Product Design Office and the Walter P. Chrysler Museum will be on site for the unearthing and public reveal of the 1957 Plymouth Belvedere in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Friday, June 15.

For more information on TULSARAMA, the "buried car" and the 1957 Plymouth Belvedere, please visit http://www.buriedcar.com

The events of June 15 can be viewed at:

http://www.kotv.com/special/buried-car/


Read more of todays top new stories at:

http://www.prnewswire.com/

Scientists Confirm Case of Shark That Reproduced Without Mating

Also: researchers celebrate the 300th birthday of Carl Linnaeus, the man who named the natural world.

The birth of a shark in the United States has been confirmed as the first case of a female shark reproducing without a male shark. Scientists from Florida, Nebraska and Northern Ireland studied genetic material taken from a baby hammerhead shark. The baby shark was born six years ago at a zoo in Omaha, Nebraska. At the time, its mother had been living without male sharks for three years.

Another fish was said to have killed the baby shark shortly after it was born. Recently, tests showed the baby had no genetic material from a male shark. The findings were reported in the publication Biology Letters.

VOICE TWO:
At the time of the birth, researchers believed that the mother had possibly used reproductive fluid received from a male shark years earlier. Female sharks are able to store such fluid from male sharks. However, no shark has been known to do this for several years.

Instead, the scientists found the mother’s own genetic material combined when her egg was produced. This form of reproduction involving only one animal is called parthenogenesis. It is also known as asexual reproduction.

VOICE ONE:
Asexual reproduction has been known to happen in some animals, including snakes and lizards. But it has never been confirmed in mammals. The shark's birth was the first time asexual reproduction had been observed in a shark. It has yet to be observed in animals that live in the wild.

Scientists say the discovery may also explain growing numbers of sharks born in captivity without males present. However, genetic material from these sharks must also be tested to confirm asexual reproduction.

VOICE TWO:
Scientists now wonder if animals living in the wild also reproduce in this way. Many shark populations are decreasing because people are killing too many of the animals. The asexual form of reproduction could help population numbers. Yet scientists say it could also be harmful for the species itself.

Biologists say that sharks born asexually with only their mother’s genetic material will have less chance of surviving than other sharks. Genetic material from a male and female helps living creatures to better deal with disease and other threats. If sharks in the wild are reproducing asexually, their young will be genetically weaker than those produced sexually.

VOICE ONE:
Carl LinnaeusLast month, scientists around the world celebrated the birthday of an important man in the history of science. His name was Carl Linnaeus. He was born three hundred years ago in Sweden.

Carl Linnaeus is remembered for developing a system of scientific names for all the living things on Earth. Experts say his system continues to influence the way people think about the natural world.

VOICE TWO:
Linnaeus was a medical doctor. He also was very interested in plants. In seventeen thirty-five, he produced a book that listed all the known plants in the world by their sexual parts. The book was called "Systema Naturae," or "System of Nature."

Linnaeus later published two more books. They proposed a system of dividing and ordering plants by groups. These publications listed and ordered all the known plants and animals in the world. That was more than seven thousand kinds of plants and more than four thousand kinds of animals.

Linnaeus continued to make changes in his system and publish books describing them. The tenth version of "Systema Naturae" was published more than twenty years after the first one. The naming system he described in that book is the one that has been used ever since by scientists.

VOICE ONE:
The system that Linnaeus used to organize all living things started with the largest group, called a kingdom. He divided all living things into one of three kingdoms: plant, animal, or mineral. Members of each kingdom were then placed into increasingly smaller groups. Linnaeus' system was the first to place human beings in the same group as animals that walk on two legs.

The main part of the system that survives today combines two groups that have biological meaning. It is the two-word description of an organism based on its physical appearance: the genus name and the descriptor. A good example is the expression Linnaeus used to describe human beings and that we continue to use -- homo sapiens.

VOICE TWO:
Scientists have been making changes to his naming system for more than two hundred years. Today, some experts want to re-organize the system. They say this is needed because of the scientific progress that has been made since Linnaeus' time. For example, biology experts want changes because knowledge of genetic material has created much new information.

Some people are calling for a system that would group organisms with a common history. But others feel there is no real agreement as to how to place new discoveries in groups. They say Linneus' system has been used for so long that it would be very difficult to change.

Scientists say the main reason the system survives is because it is simple. They say its use makes it possible for persons who speak different languages to understand each other, and agree on what they are talking about. The system also makes it easy for scientists today to identify all the ten million known species of plants and animals. That is many more living things than were known during Carl Linnaeus' lifetime.

VOICE TWO:
This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Brianna Blake, Nancy Steinbach and Caty Weaver. Our producer was Mario Ritter. I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE ONE:

And I'm Barbara Klein. Join us again at this time next week for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America.

Listen to this story and more on Voice of America:



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