Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, November 21, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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baronial
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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When Not to Use a SemicolonAlthough semicolons function in ways similar to both commas and periods, they do not have the exact function of either: they are stronger than a comma but weaker than a period, so it is not always appropriate to substitute one for the other. With what types of clauses would we not use a semicolon? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 SkiffleSkiffle is a genre of music incorporating blues, folk, jazz, and country influences, but performed using homemade instruments. Though skiffle performers sometimes use banjos or guitars, they also make use of washboards, jugs, tubs, and comb-and-paper kazoos. Skiffle originated in the US in the early 20th century before spreading to the UK. By the late 1950s, there were as many as 50,000 skiffle groups in the UK—including the band that would become The Beatles. What was the group's name? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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.jpg) First Manned, Untethered Hot Air Balloon Flight (1783)The pioneering ballooning efforts of the Montgolfier brothers of France made 1783 a noteworthy year in aviation history. That year, the pair developed the first practical hot-air balloon—and demonstrated its safety by sending aloft a sheep, a duck, and a rooster. Months later, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent, Marquis d'Arlandes, made the first manned, untethered flight in a Montgolfier balloon, but they had not been the first choices to pilot the historic flight. Who were? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 René Magritte (1898)Before gaining the support of a Brussels art gallery and taking up painting full-time, Magritte earned a living designing wallpaper and advertisements. His early works were in the Cubist and Futurist styles, but he soon embraced Surrealism. Dislocations of space, time, and scale were common elements in his illogical paintings, and he used certain images—the sea, the female torso, the bourgeois "little man" in a bowler hat—repeatedly. Why did art thieves return a stolen Magritte painting in 2012? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 The soldier who executes what his captain orders does no less than the captain himself who gives the order.Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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nut (something) out— To discover, through careful consideration, deliberation, or investigation, the solution to something. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (2021)The Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary was first celebrated by the Greeks in about the 8th century and was not adopted by the Roman Catholic Church until the later Middle Ages; no one is quite sure when this festival was first introduced. As related in the apocryphal Book of James, it commemorates the presentation of the three-year-old Mary in the Temple to consecrate her to the service of God. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: justicehigh court - A supreme court of justice. More... attain - First meant "bring to justice." More... revenge, justice - Revenge is personal and justice is societal. More... blind justice - The Greek statue for justice is wearing a blindfold so she cannot see the bribes being offered to her, hence blind justice. More... | |