Daily Content Archive
(as of Monday, February 16, 2015)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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assuage
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Adverbs of DegreeAdverbs of degree are used to indicate the intensity, degree, or extent of the verb, adjective, or adverb they are modifying. What are grading adverbs? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 MombasaMombasa is the second largest city in Kenya, with a population of 900,000. Until the 16th century, Mombasa was a center of the Arab trade in ivory and slaves. The city was visited by Vasco da Gama on his first voyage to India, and it was burned three times by the Portuguese. Today, Mombasa serves as a chief port for Kenya, Uganda, and northeast Tanzania, and its beaches and resorts attract thousands of tourists annually. What tragic series of events happened here on November 28, 2002? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Burning of the USS Philadelphia (1804)The USS Philadelphia was a 36-gun frigate that ran aground in October 1803 while blockading the coast of Tripoli. After some consideration, the Americans decided that the ship was too powerful a weapon to remain in enemy hands and sent a party of soldiers to recapture the ship and burn it. In carrying out "the most bold and daring act of the age," the assaulting party used what ruse to sail up to the ship without arousing the suspicion of its Tripolitan guards? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Hugo Marie de Vries (1848)De Vries was a Dutch botanist whose theory of biological mutation and rediscovery of Mendel's laws of heredity made possible the active investigation and universal acceptance of Darwin's theory of evolution. He held that new species are formed chiefly through mutations—sudden, unpredictable, inheritable changes in an individual organism. Teaching at the University of Amsterdam, he introduced the experimental study of evolution. What important evolution-related term did he introduce to science? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 In song and dance man expresses himself as a member of a higher community: he has forgotten how to walk and speak and is on the way toward flying up into the air, dancing.Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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gut factor— The subjective, emotional element or dimension that influences a decision. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Washington's Birthday Celebration (Laredo, Texas) (2020)This celebration in honor of George Washington has been held since 1898 by Laredo, Texas, and its sister city on the other side of the Mexican border, Nuevo Laredo. The two Laredos (los dos Laredos in Spanish) are linked by history and by three bridges across the Rio Grande. Both cities also celebrate Mexico's Independence Day in September. Washington's birthday events include dances, fireworks, mariachi music, a fun run, a jalapeño-eating contest, and parades with lavishly decorated floats. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: tidebillow - The swell on the ocean produced by the wind, or on a river or estuary by the tide or wind. More... slack water, slack tide - Before any turn of the tide, there is a time of slack water or slack tide. More... happy as a clam - Originally happy-as-a-clam-at-full-tide; it may refer to the fact that when the tide is full, nobody is digging clams. More... tidy - Comes from tide, which in Old English meant "time period"; its original meaning was "timely, opportune." More... | |