World News for Students of English

06-05-2015 15:00

Thousands of people from Australia, New Zealand, and Turkey gathered on Saturday, April 25, on the shores of Gallipoli, for dawn services commemorating the 100th anniversary of one of the bloodiest battles of World War I. The fighting would eventually claim more than 130,000 lives.

Gallipoli was the first time that soldiers from Australia and New Zealand fought under their own flags, and it’s seared in the national consciousness as a point where the nations came of age, emerging from the shadow of the British Empire.

The Prince of Wales attended the event, along with his son, Prince Harry.

“‘But if I am to die, know that I died loving you, with my whole heart and soul, dearest wife that a man ever had.’ Here today we remember his sacrifice and that of all those, who served and suffered in this faraway place on the other side of the world from the antipodes.”

The area has become a site of pilgrimage for visitors from the two countries, who honour their fallen in graveyards halfway around the world on Anzac Day each year.

Difficult words: gather (to come together), commemorate (to honour), claim (to take away), sear (to remember strongly), national consciousness (what all the people in a country think), to come of age (to grow up), shadow (the influence), antipodes (Australia and New Zealand), pilgrimage (a holy or special place that people visit).

Source: www.ondemandnews.com