He served for 8 years in the Illinois state Senate before voters elected him to the United States Senate in 2004.

VOA: special.2009.01.12

It took a number of years before Congress was able to pass a law demanding a literacy test for immigrants.

VOA: special.2010.05.20

Years later,Woody described what singing meant to him: "When you sing a song, it reaches out and enters people's ears.

VOA: special.2010.06.13

The name is based on a funny joke many years ago on a British television show, "Monty Python's Flying Circus."

VOA: special.2010.08.01

But ten years later, a similar accusation by another boy led to a criminal trial which began in two thousand five.

VOA: special.2009.07.05

A farmer in Zambia said he hoped to have enough money in three years to buy a diesel-powered pump.

VOA: special.2009.08.17

By eighteen sixty-three, America's northern states and southern states had been fighting a bitter civil war for two years.

VOA: special.2009.10.29

The problem reportedly has led to more than eight hundred crashes and nineteen deaths in the past ten years.

VOA: special.2010.02.05

People moved into the American Southwest more than ten thousand years ago as the last ice age was ending.

VOA: special.2010.07.05

Many years ago, a young man named Giovanni Guasconti left his home in Naples to study in northern Italy.

VOA: special.2011.01.29

The Roman historian Pliny said that Phoenician sailors accidentally discovered how to make glass over three thousand years ago.

VOA: special.2009.09.16

The Justice Department says rates in recent years fell to levels last seen in the middle of the nineteen sixties.

VOA: special.2009.12.19

In South Korea, President Obama and President Lee Myung-bak discussed a free trade agreement signed by their governments two years ago.

VOA: special.2009.11.21

I'm trying to travel as much as possible and discover the city I've been living in for three years."

VOA: special.2010.06.18