Famous Days for Students of English

12-04-1980

Canadian Terry Fox had been a passionate athlete since his childhood. When he was only 17 years old, doctors diagnosed him with cancer in his leg, and he had to undergo an amputation of his right leg.

Seeing what a terrible disease cancer was, Terry decided to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research. He wanted to raise 24 million dollars. That was the number of people living in Canada at that time. He called his run the Marathon of Hope.

On April 12, 1980, Terry Fox began his run and set out on an 8,000-kilometer journey that was to take 7 months. He ran with his prosthesis for 42 kilometers every day. In the beginning, he couldn’t collect much money.

However, everything changed when he reached Montreal. There, an owner of a hotel chain learned about his idea. He was intrigued by the story of a one-legged kid “trying to do the impossible“ and run across the country. The hotel owner offered Terry food and accommodation at his hotels during his journey. He also promised to give Terry $2 a mile and persuaded close to 1,000 other big companies to do the same.

The amount of money that Terry Fox raised was growing. On February 1981, the goal was accomplished. People donated 24 million dollars for cancer research and awareness.

Difficult words: cancer (a very serious illness), undergo (when something is done to you), raise (to collect money), set out (to start), prosthesis (an artificial leg), chain (a number of hotels owned by one company), intrigued (very interested in something), awareness (knowledge about some topic).