VOA · As It Is
Intermediate · B1–B2learner speed4:522025-03-13public domain
As It Is is VOA Learning English's daily news magazine. Each report covers a current story in clear, learner-speed English with a controlled vocabulary — the closest thing to real news broadcasts that intermediate learners can fully digest, and ideal raw material for dictation.
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01Fort Knox is the name of an army base in the southern state of Kentucky.
02But in the minds of most Americans, the name is better known for its link to gold.
03Since 1937, the United States has housed a large share of the government's gold reserves at Fort Knox.
04The depository is next to, but not part of, the army base.
05The United States Mint controls the building where the gold is stored.
06The Mint is an agency under the U.S.
07Treasury Department.
08The U.S.
09Mint says the Fort Knox Bullion Depository holds just over 147 million ounces of gold.
10That amount is equal to more than 4.5 million kilograms of gold.
11The gold is in the form of coins and bars.
12The bars measure about 17 centimeters long and 9 centimeters wide.
13In 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered an end to the use of gold as money.
14The newly elected president did this as part of his New Deal economic plan during the Great Depression, a deep financial crisis.
15Private ownership of gold, not in the form of jewelry or collectible coins, became illegal.
16So, people who owned gold exchanged it with the government for paper money.
17Soon, the government needed a safe place to store its growing amounts of gold.
18The Treasury Department started building the Fort Knox Depository in 1936.
19As you might imagine, the building has very high security.
20In fact, the term Fort Knox is used in popular language to describe something that is carefully protected.
21The gold is housed in a two-level vault made of concrete and steel.
22The Treasury Department website says no one person knows the code that opens the vault.
23Instead, several people must each enter a separate code to open it.
24Other valuable objects have been stored at Fort Knox over the years.
25These include the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta, and three versions of the Gutenberg Bible.
26The Gutenberg Bible was the first major book in Europe to be printed with movable type.
27Do not get too excited about visiting Fort Knox.
28The Bullion Depository is not open to the public.
29It is not even open to government officials.
30However, that restriction was eased two times in recent history.
31In 1974, Fort Knox was opened to a group of news reporters and members of Congress.
32The special permission to enter followed a series of claims that all the gold had been removed from the vaults.
33The visitors found that the gold was still in place.
34And in 2017, the Secretary of the Treasury at the time, Steve Mnuchin, also entered the depository.
35Some U.S.
36Congress members and the governor of Kentucky visited with him.
37I'm Katie Weaver.
38I'm Katie Weaver.
39I'm Katie Weaver.
40I'm Katie Weaver.
41I'm Katie Weaver.
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