C1: What Night Life Looked Like Before Electricity

Below is a C1 English listening task about what the night was like before the electricity age. Good luck and enjoy!

Brief Intro.

We are so used to power that we forget that it isn’t even a century old. In 1925, only half of all US homes had electricity. Without it, nothing would be possible today. The light in your room, the refrigerator, store signs, and credit cards: they all need electricity to run. So, how did people live without it? Did our cities lie in complete darkness?

Intro

it's 10 P.M. you suddenly feel hungry and go to the fridge but there's nothing inside you decide to hop to the nearest supermarket there you find the snack you want and pay by card on the way home you wonder was it this easy to get food in the city a century ago one of the street lights flickers and goes out you are now in the dark feeling scared now you know how people felt after sundown in the pre-electricity era we are so used to power that we forget that it isn't even a century old in 1925 only half of all U.S homes had electricity without it nothing would be possible today the light in your room the refrigerator store signs and credit card they all need electricity to run so how did people live without it did our cities lie in complete darkness not quite the history of Illuminating our homes and streets is thousands of years old

Oil lamps

Recently 2022 archaeologists discovered the oldest intact oil lamp they estimated it was 2 300 years old there is evidence of workshops that produced these lamps on a massive scale Italian scientists have discovered similar lamps in Modena this city was the center of oil lamp production in the Roman Empire the workshops were so widespread that they even had different brands fortisbai and strabili some Brands were in high demand so other manufacturers copied their Maker's Marks we thought that fakes were a modern problem these oil lamps were simple in design high-end lamps were made from bronze and other metals but the most common material was Clay people would pour oil through the central hole and then burn a wick inside the nozzle area the wick was mostly linen but oil lamps were small in size and were used indoors there was no way to light a whole street with them the alternative was you've guessed it candles

Candles

humans still use candles today your grandma probably has a candle and a box of matches hidden in a drawer somewhere just in case of a power outage humans have been making candles for five thousand years when you think of a candle you think of beeswax but the range of candle materials is pretty wide in the Middle Ages only the rich could afford beeswax candles the rest of the population had to be happy with Tallow by modern standards candles have terrible Energy Efficiency do you remember the time when you first saw a candle and tried to touch it ouch you never got that idea again did you candles use a lot of energy to generate heat that's why they are far from ideal light sources and the light they emit is not the kind we need it's infrared humans cannot see this sort of light the numbers are staggering only one percent of Candlelight is visible us humans modern light bulbs are way more efficient they shine 80 times brighter than candles

Quiz 1: Intro, Oil Lamps, & Candles

1 - In 1925, only half of all US homes had electricity.

a. True

b. False

c. Does not say

2 - Recently 2022 archaeologists discovered the oldest intact oil lamp they estimated it was 3 300 years old

a. True

b. False

c. Does not say

3 - Archaeologists theorized the oil lamp belonged to a prominent Roman due to the brand marking on it.

a. True

b. False

c. Does not say

4 - in the Roman Empire the workshops were so widespread that they even had different brands fortisbai and strabili some Brands were in high demand so other manufacturers copied their Maker's Marks.

a. True

b. False

c. Does not say

5 - these oil lamps were simple in design high-end lamps were made from cooper and other metals but the most common material was Clay

a. True

b. False

c. Does not say

6 - in the Middle Ages only the rich could afford beeswax candles the rest of the population had to be happy with Tallow

a. True

b. False

c. Does not say

7 - Candle makers of the time made fake candles made of tallow but claimed they were beeswax.

a. True

b. False

c. Does not say

8 - candles are ideal light sources because they emit the kind we need such as infrared.

a. True

b. False

c. Does not say

9 - Modern light bulbs are way more efficient they shine 95 times brighter than candles

a. True

b. False

c. Does not say

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Quiz 1: Intro, Oil Lamps, & Candles

1 - a ---> True

2 - b ---> False ---> Recently 2022 archaeologists discovered the oldest intact oil lamp they estimated it was 2,300 years old

3 - c ---> Does not say

4 - a ---> True

5 - b ---> 5 - these oil lamps were simple in design high-end lamps were made from bronze and other metals but the most common material was Clay

6 - a ---> True

7 - c ---> Does not say

8 - b ---> False ---> Candles use a lot of energy to generate heat that's why they are far from ideal light sources and the light they emit is not the kind we need it's infrared humans cannot see this sort of light the numbers are staggering only one percent of Candlelight is visible us humans

9 - b ---> Modern light bulbs are way more efficient they shine 80 times brighter than candles

10 -

Art, Mirrors, & Fires

Art

in such dim conditions our ancestors had to be imaginative for instance they covered artwork with a thin layer of gold this technique was called Gold Leaf artists didn't do this to make their artwork look luxurious they wanted their paintings to Glow in the candlelight and they had another Ally in the struggle against Darkness natural light have you ever wondered why old churches have tall elongated Windows their main function was to let sunlight inside after al these structures were huge there was no other way to illuminate them just take Notre Dame Paris France as an example it covers an area four times as large as a hockey rink and the building was 211 feet high that's about half as tall as the Great Pyramid of Giza so it made sense to build large windows

Mirrors

in homes mirrors had the same effect as Windows they would reflect natural light

around the house before electricity our homes were packed with mirrors how many do we have today one in the bathroom and maybe one in the hallway that's because we no longer need them to reflect light all those mirrors have been replaced with a simple flip of a light switch today interior designers advise people to remove mirrors from their bedrooms for better sleep talk about a plot twist but what about buildings that people visited at night time such as theaters and Opera Houses the solution was surprisingly low-tech candles like thousands of them Builders mounted them on large chandeliers but there was a problem all those candles created heat and would burn for an hour or so max playwrights and composers had to add pauses so staff would have time to replace the candles

Fire

have you ever shattered a light bulb by accident not a pleasant experience but luckily

you can clean the glass with a broom in seconds before electricity such clumsiness cost people their lives knocking over a candle could start a major fire and there was another danger ladies wore long dresses that presented a fire hazard our ancestors were literally playing with fire and this is all indoors outside the house you would have to carry a flaming torch or hope that the sky wasn't cloudy so you could navigate By Moonlight and one smart American decided not to go out at night at al Benjamin Franklin went to bed at 10 pm and got up at 5am but over in London going out at night created a new business link boys carried torches for victorians these youngsters would wade outside ins for patrons to come out after dark and offer their services and they did their job in times of thick fog as well that's the English weather for you

Quiz 2: Art, Mirrors, & Fire

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Gas Lamps. Electricity, & Lighting

Gas lamps

before electricity it was dangerous to go outside after Sundown but this was about to change in 1807. that's when a German engineer Frederick Windsor lit a street in London using gas lamps it was finally becoming possible to go out at night and feel safe now these gas lamps weren't easy to operate at dusk a Lamplighter had to carry a torch to turn them on so to say and then at dawn they had to do another round to put out the Flames that sounds like some good cardio and it was during their entire career a Lamplighter could easily walk 150 000 miles in total and then came electricity in the 1870s Thomas Edison was the first to produce commercial light bulbs a city in the west of Romania timisoara became the first place in Europe to have electric street lights half of the homes in Britain had electric power by the end of the 1930s the age of electricity had begun but there was still room for improvement

Electricity

time the most common type of light bulb was incandescent this means that the light bulb has a filament inside that produces light when heated by electric power this type of bulb is similar to a candle it produces heat rather than light and the ratio will stun you 95 percent of the electricity that flows through the light bulb is converted into heat yes you've heard it right only five percent of energy is used for creating actual light despite this electric power has changed the way we live

Lighting

in the year 1800 only two percent of the world's population lived in cities and there is a good reason for this cities were Dark Places illuminated only by candles and oil lamps there was no Street lighting after electricity beca a thing the numbers turned according to the World Bank more than half of the world's population 56 percent lives in cities today and our Urban settlements look a lot different than they did just a century and a half ago they now shine bright on satellite images from space Las Vegas is the city that shines the brightest at night but the story of Illumination is far from over in 2006 Ann Arbor Michigan U.S became the first metropolitan area to use LED for Street lighting it is short for light emitting diodes this new type of lighting uses at least 75 percent less energy than the light bulb perfected by Edison in the 1800s and they last longer too up to 25 times

Quiz 3: Gas Lamps, Electricity, & Lighting

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