Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, October 15, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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frisson
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| Article of the Day | |
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 The Tempest PrognosticatorThe Tempest Prognosticator, known also as the Leech Barometer because it uses leeches to predict storms, was invented in 1850 by Dr. George Merryweather. The device contains 12 leeches, each kept in a small bottle. When the leeches become agitated by electrical conditions in the atmosphere generated by an approaching storm, they attempt to climb out of the bottles and trigger a small hammer that strikes a bell. Whose poetry inspired Merryweather to build his device? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 11-Year-Old Grace Bedell Urges Abraham Lincoln to Grow a Beard (1860)A few weeks before Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the US, 11-year-old Grace Bedell sent him a letter urging him to grow a beard to win over voters. Bedell claimed that "all the ladies like whiskers" and would urge their husbands to vote for a bearded Lincoln. Days later, Lincoln drafted a noncommittal response in which he wondered whether such a change in appearance would be well received. Within months, he was sporting his now-iconic beard. What did he say when he later met Bedell? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Sir Pelham Grenville "P. G." Wodehouse (1881)Wodehouse was an English-American comic writer who enjoyed enormous success during his more than 70-year career. His works are set in Edwardian England and feature idiotic youths, feckless debutantes, redoubtable aunts, and stuffy businessmen. His most famous characters are the young bachelor Bertie Wooster and his unflappable valet Jeeves. Although Wodehouse was knighted shortly before his death, the character of Bertie did cost him entry into the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1967. Why? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.Francis Bacon (1561-1626) | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 International Cervantes Festival (2020)Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616), best known for Don Quixote (1605), is honored in a three-week festival held in Guanajuato, Mexico, featuring orchestral music, opera, theater, dance, film and folklore. Although most festival events are held in the Teatro Juarez and the Teatro Principal, amateur Mexican actors often give street performances of Cervantes's famous one-act plays in the Plaza de San Roque. Various musical performances are a popular attraction, as are art exhibits, children's theater, and folkloric dance ensembles. More... | |