Houghton Mifflin Online Leveled Books

Gandhi became a great leader, developing a system of non-violent protests to fight against prejudice and other injustices. He led India to independence and is honored as a ?Great Soul? by Indians and other people from around the world.

People have studied and measured the passage of time for thousands of years. The ways in which time is measured have changed dramatically. Nowadays, it seems that we rely on clocks for everything.

Climate changes that resulted in severe conditions may have caused ancient societies to collapse. Scientists study these past climates to estimate conditions for given periods of history, and predict future climate changes.

In 1982, Chilean novelist Isabel Allende wrote The House of the Spirits. Written in a style called magical realism, it drew on her family history and the politics and culture of Chile, and it became an international best-seller. She has since written many other books and is now a U.S. citizen.

How could one simple idea?fencing?create such controversy? Yet, barbed wire emerged as the champion of change. While it closed the open range of the cattle ranchers and Native Americans, it opened the Great Plains to farming and settlement. Perhaps no single invention changed the American West more significantly than barbed wire.

Carrying peace medals as tokens of goodwill, Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery trekked across unknown territory to the Pacific Ocean. The expedition, including Sacagawea and her family, was welcomed and aided by numerous Native American groups along the way. Without these new friends, the history-making journey on behalf of President Thomas Jefferson might not have been possible.

The Trapp family in The Sound of Music was loosely based on the real Trapp family from Austria. While there are many similarities between the families?such as children with musical abilities and a governess who marries a widowed father?the actual Trapp family was different from the movie family.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed from Spain and changed the course of human history. His voyage also changed the course of biology with a great exchange of ideas, people, animals, plants, and diseases between the old world and the new. This is known as the Columbian Exchange.

Scientists want to know more about Mars. They train and conduct research in Haughton Crater on Devon Island in Northern Canada. The scientists use the crater because it has conditions similar to those on Mars and the moon.

Title IX became a law in 1972. Its purpose is to see that males and females are given equal opportunities in all federally funded school programs, including sports. As a result of equal programs and scholarships, many females have become Olympic athletes.