Daily Content Archive
(as of Wednesday, December 6, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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progeny
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Comma SplicesA comma splice occurs when we join two independent clauses with a comma. Why can't we use a comma in this situation? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The People's TempleThe People's Temple was a cult founded in 1955 by preacher Jim Jones. Though his congregation was known for helping the poor, Jones became the subject of criminal investigations and led 1,000 followers to Guyana in 1977, establishing the Jonestown commune there. In 1978, cult members killed US Representative Leo Ryan during an investigatory visit. The next day, 912 of Jones's followers died in a mass murder-suicide that involved cyanide-laced punch. Did anyone survive? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 The Banana Massacre (1928)In December 1928, after a month-long strike to secure better working conditions, United Fruit Company workers from the Colombian town of Ciénaga gathered with their families in the town square to hear a scheduled gubernatorial address. Instead of words they were met with bullets fired by government troops. An unknown number died that day. The government took such decisive—and deadly—action to end the strike partly out of fear that US interests in the United Fruit Company would lead to what? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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.jpg) Henry VI of England (1421)Henry VI became king of England when he was not yet nine months old. That same year, the English proclaimed the infant the successor to the French throne, but France did not recognize this. The young monarch grew up to be a mild, honest, and pious man, a patron of literature and the arts. He was, however, also mentally unstable, weak-willed, and politically naive, and this created a power vacuum that his overly powerful ministers vied to fill, eventually resulting in what decades-long conflict? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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have a mind like a sieve— To be exceptionally forgetful or absentminded. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 St. Nicholas's Day (Greece) (2021)As the patron saint of ships and seamen, St. Nicholas is very important to the Greeks, so many of whom have traditionally made their living at sea. Many Greek ships, from the smallest fishing boat to the largest commercial vessel, carry an icon of the saint on board. Seamen honor St. Nicholas on his feast day, which falls at a time of year when storms grow more frequent, by burning a light before his icon and saying prayers for the safety of their boat or ship. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: plasterdrywall, plasterboard - Drywall is a building material made of a sheet of plaster covered with heavy paper on both sides; it is also called plasterboard. More... gypsum - From Semitic, a relative or ancestor of Arabic jibs and Hebrew gephes, "plaster." More... plaster of Paris - So called because it is prepared from the gypsum of Paris, France. More... trullization - Laying on plaster with a trowel. More... | |