(1)      Sacajawea, a member of the Shoshone tribe, proved invaluable as a member of the historic 1804-1806 Lewis and Clark expedition. The only woman to accompany the expedition, she served as a guide and interpreter when Lewis and Clark reached the upper Missouri River and the mountains from which she had come. While still a teenager, she took part in the expedition from the Northern Great Plains to the Pacific Ocean and back, using her navigational, diplomatic, and translating skills to make an outstanding contribution to the success of the expedition.

(2)      Sacajawea's contributions to the success of the Lewis and Clark expedition were numerous and varied. She served as an interpreter and diplomat in dealing with the Shoshone that the expedition encountered. While she herself did not speak English, she spoke Shoshone and Hidatsa and was able to convey information to her husband, who spoke Hidatsa and French; her husband then communicated with a French-and English-speaking member of the expedition. When the expedition encountered the Shoshone, Sacajawea would communicate the expedition's peaceful intentions and negotiate the purchase of horses and needed supplies from the Shoshone. In addition to her assistance as a negotiator and diplomat, Sacajawea used her broad knowledge of the bounties of nature to help keep the expedition healthy and fed. She knew which roots, plants, and berries could be used as food and which could be used to treat a host of maladies, ranging from minor injuries to serious illnesses, and she spent uncountable hours scouring the land in search of roots to dig and plants and berries to gather. She also turned out to be extremely useful to the expedition as a guide through the huge expanses of land that she had covered in her youth. She remembered Shoshone trails from her childhood and was able to point out expeditious routes, including what is today known as Bozeman Pass in Montana, because of these childhood memories. Because of these, and numerous other contributions, Sacajawea proved instrumental in the success of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

(1)      The auroras are a phenomenal display of greenish-white light typically visible in the skies above the polar regions of the Earth. This natural light show constantly changes in configuration and can shift dramatically in seconds; it may change from a barely visible glow to blinding sheets of swaying, shimmering light. However, it is not just an enjoyable light show; it is also a phenomenon that bears further study because of its potential impact on civilization.

(2)      Richard Carrington, an English physicist and astronomer, was the first person to determine the actual cause of the auroras. On September 1, 1859, Carrington observed a tremendous solar flare on the surface of the Sun. Two nights later, an intense aurora spread over large parts of Europe. Carrington came to the conclusion that the huge solar flares two nights earlier had played a role. Carrington's first hunch has since been scientifically established. It is now known that the solar wind, a continuous flow of charged subatomic particles from the Sun that streams around the Earth, causes the auroras as it passes through the Earth's geomagnetic field.

(3)      The auroras are generally a polar phenomenon; however, particularly strong auroras have at times appeared over densely populated areas of the Earth and have wreaked havoc. The 1859 aurora noted by Carrington took out telegraph communication throughout much of Europe by overwhelming the pulses of electromagnets. A century later, in 1958, a tremendous auroral storm above North America overloaded utility circuits and caused a blackout in much of northeastern Canada. Twenty auroral superstorms have been recorded since 1880, and human dependence on electrical devices has been increasing steadily. With this large number of superstorms and ever-widening use of electrical devices, further auroral interference into the lives of humanity seems likely.