Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, January 14, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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ConjunctionsConjunctions are used to express relationships between things in a sentence, link different clauses together, and to combine sentences. There are four main types of conjunctions—what are they? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Japanese SakeSake is a Japanese alcoholic beverage made from rice. Although there are multiple theories about how it was developed, the first sakes were likely made from rice, millet, chestnuts, and acorns that people chewed and spit into a tub. The enzymes from the saliva converted the starches to sugars, resulting in a sweet mixture that was combined with freshly cooked grain and allowed to ferment. What does drinking sake from another's cup signify in Japanese culture? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Huygens Probe Lands on Titan (2005)It took the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft more than six years to reach Saturn. During the trip, the Huygens probe remained dormant, preserving its battery life for a landing on Saturn's largest moon. The only moon in the solar system known to have clouds and a dense atmosphere, Titan resembles Earth in many ways. It was not known whether the probe would land on solid ground or in an ocean. After Huygens touched down, Titan's surface was described as being similar to what food? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Kimitake Hiraoka, AKA Yukio Mishima (1925)Born into a samurai family, Mishima served briefly in the finance ministry before going on to become one of the most important Japanese novelists of the 20th century. His novels are known for their exquisite attention to detail and character and often involve paradoxes—such as when a troubled monk destroys the temple he loves in The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Following a failed coup attempt in 1970, he tried to commit seppuku, ritual suicide by self-disembowelment. How did he die? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Danger lies in the writer becoming the victim of his own exaggeration ... and in the end coming to despise truth itself as something too cold, too blunt for his purpose—as, in fact, not good enough for his insistent emotion. From laughter and tears the descent is easy to sniveling and giggles.Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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jump at the chance (to do something)— To accept or seize with alacrity an opportunity (to do something). More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Ratification Day (2021)Though most people associate the end of the American Revolution with the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781, the war was not officially ended until the Treaty of Paris was ratified on January 14, 1784. The Old Senate Chamber in the Maryland State House at Annapolis has been preserved exactly as it was when the ratification took place. On Ratification Day, the ceremony that takes place inside varies from year to year, but it often revolves around a particular aspect of the original event. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: slopingpitched - Describing a "steeply downward sloping" roof built at an angle. More... fastigiate - Means "sloping up to a point." More... slalom - From Norwegian sla, "sloping," and lam, "track." More... squint - Short for the obsolete asquint, which may have come from Dutch schuin, "sideways, sloping." More... | |