Daily Content Archive
(as of Friday, January 3, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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pretermit
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Prepositions that Describe PerformanceWhen we describe how well someone does something, we often use the verb phrase "is good" followed by the preposition "at." However, if we use the verb phrase "does well," what preposition do we use? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Khayr ad-Din BarbarossaBarbarossa was a 16th-century Greek-born Turkish corsair who terrorized the Mediterranean, raiding numerous coastal cities in Spain, Italy, and along North Africa's Barbary Coast. He offered allegiance to the Ottoman sultan in return for aid that enabled him to capture Algiers, which he then placed under Turkish control. He was made admiral of the Ottoman Empire, conquered Tunisia, and secured the eastern Mediterranean for the Turks for 33 years. How do Turkish seamen honor his memory today? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 NASA's Mars Polar Lander Launched (1999)The distance from Earth to Mars fluctuates between approximately 35 million mi (56 million km) and 63 million mi (101 million km). In 1999, NASA's Mars Polar Lander, on a mission to analyze soil samples, made the long journey to the Red Planet only to fail to re-establish communications following its entry into Mars's atmosphere. After the lander was declared lost, an investigation determined that it likely crashed onto the Martian surface. How long did it take the lander to reach Mars? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Lucretia Coffin Mott (1793)Mott was an American social reformer and women's rights advocate. She attended a Quaker boarding school near Poughkeepsie, New York, where she later taught, and became an official Quaker minister in 1821. She was active in the antislavery campaign and lectured widely on social reform. In 1848, she and Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the Seneca Falls Convention, which launched the US women's suffrage movement. On what issue was Mott's stance at odds with that of the mainstream women's movement? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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go under the hammer— To be put up for or sold at auction. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Ball-Catching Festival (Tamaseseri) (2020)This 500-year-old tradition, said to have its roots in the legend of a dragon god (Ryujin) offering two balls to the Empress Jingu (170-269), takes place each year in Higashi-Ku, Fukuoka City, Japan. Two teams of men wearing only loincloths (fundoshi) compete for a ball that weighs about 18 pounds; these teams consist of the Land Team, made up of farmers who work the fields, and the Sea team, composed of fishermen. A Shinto priest awaits the winner to hand him the ball—the size of the harvest or of the catch during the New Year is determined by which team wins. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: slaughterfatstock - Livestock fattened for slaughter. More... massacre - Comes from Latin mazacrium/masacrium, "slaughter." More... slaughter - From Old Norse, meaning "butcher's meat." More... homicide, murder, manslaughter - The general term for the killing of a person by another is homicide; murder is either the intentional killing or the malicious killing of another, while manslaughter is the unintentional, accidental killing of another through carelessness. More... | |