Daily Content Archive
(as of Friday, August 18, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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gullible
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Defining Conjunctive Adverbs of PurposeAdverbs of purpose tell us why something happens or is the case. We often use conjunctive adverbs to indicate a relationship of reason or purpose between two independent clauses. What are some common conjunctive adverbs of purpose? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 William James Sidis: Child ProdigySidis was an American child prodigy who could read The New York Times by the time he was 18 months old. By age eight, he had taught himself eight languages and had invented one of his own. It is said that in his adult years he could speak more than 40 languages and learn a new one in a single day. In 1909, he became the youngest person ever to enroll at Harvard College and began lecturing on higher mathematics the following year. What became of Sidis after he graduated in 1914, at age 16? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 The Lost Colony: The Colony of Roanoke Is Found Deserted (1590)Located off what is now the North Carolina coast, Roanoke Island was the site of the first English settlement in North America. Its original colonists, sent by Walter Raleigh, arrived in 1585 but stayed only a year. A second group led by John White arrived in 1587. Shortly thereafter, White returned to England for supplies. When he finally returned to the island, he found that all of the colonists had vanished. Their fate is still unknown. What possible clue was found carved into a tree there? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Meriwether Lewis (1774)After serving as a captain in the US army, Lewis became secretary to President Thomas Jefferson. When Congress approved a plan to find a land route to the Pacific Ocean, Jefferson selected his trusted associate, along with William Clark, to head the expedition. In 1807, Lewis was made governor of the Louisiana Territory. His sudden death—either by murder or suicide—in 1809, while on his way to Washington, DC, is still the subject of controversy. Why have requests to exhume his body been denied? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 From reading too much, and sleeping too little, his brain dried up on him and he lost his judgment.Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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alarm bell— A sudden warning or intimation of danger, risk, or ill fortune. (Often pluralized.) More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Mount Hagen Cultural Show (2019)This gathering in Papua New Guinea, known as a sing-sing, provides an opportunity for outsiders to experience the ceremonial drumming, dancing, and other displays of tribal culture of hundreds of Western Highland clans. Performers wear their traditional tribal garb, often with body paint and an elaborate headdress made of feathers. The annual Mount Hagen show, staged more for tourists than for the locals, includes a competition that encourages decorative costumes and wild dancing to the accompaniment of nonstop drumming. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: hornbugle - Originally the word for ox, whose horn was used to give signals, it came to mean such a musical instrument. More... tantara - Fanfare on a trumpet or horn. More... rhinoceros, rhinoceroses - Rhinoceros comes from Greek rhin-, "nose," and keras, "horn"; the correct plural is rhinoceroses. More... unicorn - From a Greek wild ox known as monokeros, "one horn," which, in Latin, became unicornis. More... | |