Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, March 13, 2016)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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scapegrace
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Common and Proper NounsCommon nouns identify general, nonspecific people, places, or things. A proper noun names someone or something that is one of a kind, which is signified by the use of what? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Gonzo's RootsIn 1970, journalist Hunter S. Thompson was assigned to cover the Kentucky Derby for Scanlan's Monthly. With a deadline fast approaching and his story still unwritten, Thompson desperately resorted to tearing out pages of his notes and sending them to his editor. The resulting story, titled “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved,” became the first example of Gonzo journalism. Whose belief that “fiction is often the best fact” formed the basis for Thompson's subjective writing style? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Kapp Putsch Briefly Ousts Weimar Republic Government (1920)The fledgling Weimar Republic was just a year old when a renegade right-wing military unit made the first serious coup attempt. The government had tried to disband the unit to comply with the Versailles Treaty—which limited military power in Germany—so the brigade took Berlin. The legitimate regime fled, and Wolfgang Kapp, a radical civil servant, formed a new government. Within days, the coup collapsed and the former regime returned, thanks to a massive swell of support from whom? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Percival Lowell (1855)Lowell was an astronomer who built a private observatory in Arizona to study Mars and championed the idea that intelligent inhabitants of the Red Planet had constructed a planetwide system of irrigation there. He believed that the so-called canals of Mars were bands of cultivated vegetation dependent on this irrigation. His theory, long vigorously opposed, was finally put to rest by images taken by the US Mariner spacecrafts. Lowell did, however, correctly predict the existence of what "planet"? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have.Henry James (1843-1916) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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have a crush on (someone)— To have a romantic infatuation with someone, especially unbeknownst to that person. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Omizutori Matsuri (2020)Omizutori Matsuri is marked by religious rites that have been observed for 12 centuries at the Buddhist Todaiji Temple in the city of Nara, Japan. During this period of meditative rituals, the drone of recited sutras and the sound of blowing conchs echo from the temple. On March 12, young monks on the temple gallery brandish burning pine-branches, shaking off burning pieces. Spectators below try to catch the sparks, believing they have magic power against evil. On March 13, the ceremony of drawing water is observed to the accompaniment of ancient music. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: suddenlysquall - A violent wind that comes in suddenly, but does not last long, and is often accompanied by rain or snow. More... amaze, surprise - Amaze once meant "alarm, terrify," but now means "astonish"; surprise means "meet with suddenly or without warning." More... intersilient - Describing something suddenly emerging in the midst of something. More... | |