American jazz is a mixture of sounds borrowed from such varied sources as American and African folk music, European classical music, and Christian gospel songs. One of the recognizable characteristics of jazz is its use of improvisation: certain parts of the music are written out and played the same way by various performers, and other improvised parts are created spontaneously during a performance and vary widely from performer to performer.
The earliest form of jazz was ragtime, lively songs or rags performed on the piano, and the best- known of the ragtime performers and composers was Scott Joplin. Born in 1868 to former slaves, Scott Joplin earned his living from a very early age playing the piano in bars along the Mississippi. One of his regular jobs was in the Maple Leaf Club in Sedalia, Missouri. It was there that he began writing the more than 500 compositions that he was to produce, the most famous of which was "The Maple Leaf Rag."

In the first half of the nineteenth century, the U.S. government decided that it needed to set up a system for protecting its coastline. It then began building a series of forts along the coast of the eastern part of the country to facilitate its defenses.
The largest of these forts was Fort Jefferson, which was begun in 1846. This fort was built on Garden Key, one of a cluster of small coral islands 70 miles west of Key West. At the time of its construction Fort Jefferson was believed to be of primary strategic importance to the United States because of its location at the entryway to became known as the the Gulf of Mexico. Because of its location at the entrance to a great body of water, Gibraltar of the Gulf, in reference to the island located at the mouth of the Mediterranean. The fort itself was a massive structure. It was hexagonal in shape, with 8- foot-thick walls, and was surrounded by a medieval-style moat for added security. Covering most of the Garden Key, it was approximately half a mile in circumference.
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, during the Civil War and its aftermath, the fort was used as a prison rather than a military installation. The most notorious of its prisoners was Dr. Samuel Mudd, a physician who was the most probably innocently involved in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The actual assassin, John Wilkes Booth, broke his leg as he left from the stage of the Ford Theater during the assassination. Dr. Mudd set Booth's broken leg, unaware of Booth's involvement in the assassination. As a result of this action, Dr. Mudd was sentenced to life in prison and remanded to Fort Jefferson. He was pardoned after only four years because of his courageous efforts in combating an epidemic of yellow fever that ravaged the fort.
Continuous use of Fort Jefferson ended in the 1870s, although the U.S. Navy continued with sporadic use of it into the twentieth century. Today, the massive ruins still remain on the tiny island that stands guard over the entrance to the gulf, undisturbed except for the occasional sightseer who ventures out from the coast to visit.

WATER: OUR MOST PRECIOUS RESOURCE
There are (44) people around the world who do not have enough water for their daily needs. And as the world's population increases, so does the demand for water. Today, nearly 20% of the world's population live in areas (45) there isn't sufficient fresh water. Not only that, but 25% live in developing countries that suffer from frequent water (46) . They lack the systems necessary to carry the water from the rivers to where it would be used.
If there is not enough clean water to drink, people will drink water of poor quality. This can increase the risk of (47) diseases such as cholera and dysentery. Water is a precious resource, but in countries with with anticipated above-average rainfall, like the UK or Holland, it is often taken for granted. (48) , with anticipated increase in global temperatures in years to come, we should all learn to be less wasteful.