Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, January 24, 2016)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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guile
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Causative VerbsCausative verbs indicate that a person, place, or thing is causing an action or an event to happen. What are some examples of causative verbs? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Pirate Mary ReadRead, an Englishwoman who was born in the late 17th century, spent much of her life disguised as a man and working in industries generally reserved for men. She was on a ship bound for the West Indies when it was captured by pirate captain Calico Jack Rackham. Read joined his crew and became one of the most notorious female pirates of the time. When Rackham's ship was captured and the crew sentenced to death, Read received a stay of execution after she “pled her belly,” a reference to what? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Japanese WWII Soldier Found Hiding in Guam Jungle (1972)Shoichi Yokoi was a Japanese soldier who went into hiding in the jungles of Guam in 1944 as Allied forces took the island; 28 years later, he was still there. He had hidden in an underground cave, fearing to come out of hiding even after finding leaflets declaring that WWII had ended. In 1972, he was found by hunters and returned to Japan. He was the third-to-last Japanese soldier to surrender after the war, before Hiroo Onoda and Teruo Nakamura. What did Yokoi allegedly say upon his return? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Hadrian (76 CE)The nephew of Roman emperor Trajan, Hadrian became emperor when he was adopted and named successor just before Trajan's death, after years of intrigue. After executing his senatorial opponents and abandoning many of Trajan's conquests, he began to travel widely, and many of his accomplishments were related to his visits abroad, including the beginning of construction of Hadrian's Wall. The wall is one of the largest and most significant remains of the Roman occupation of what area? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Commend a fool for his wit, or a rogue for his honesty and he will receive you into his favor.Henry Fielding (1707-1754) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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up with the crows— Awake, out of bed, and active at a particularly early hour of the morning. Primarily heard in Australia. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Alasitas Fair (2018)Each year on this day, a large marketplace in La Paz, Bolivia, is full of merchants who traditionally call out "Alasitas," an Aymara word meaning "buy from me," to potential buyers of their miniature wares. Shoppers can find tiny replicas of just about every kind of object—cars, houses, foods, furniture, clothes, tools, household goods, and, especially, money—and seek those which represent items they would like to have in the coming year. Presiding over all this downsized commerce is Ekeko, an Aymara god of material wealth, fertility, and good luck. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: socialcommunity - It can refer to group of animals or plants living together and was first used to refer to a "body of commons" or a social or political entity. More... party - Latin partitum, "part, side," became party, with the senses "political group" and, in the 18th century, "social gathering." More... mores, anomie - Mores is the Latin plural of mor/mos and means "acquired customs and manners"; social and moral conventions are mores, and the lack of these is anomie. More... sociable, social, society - Sociable, social, society, etc. originate in Latin socius, "companion, fellow," or "colleague." More... | |