Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, November 22, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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headstrong
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Constructing Phrasal VerbsPhrasal verbs are made up of a verb + a preposition or an adverbial particle, and their meaning is uniquely tied to each particular combination. What is a particle? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Hanno the NavigatorHanno was a Carthaginian explorer who, in the 5th century BCE, led about 60 ships to explore and colonize the northwestern coast of Africa. Attempts to identify the places mentioned in early accounts of the voyage have failed, possibly because the Carthaginians altered details to discourage competitors. Still, it is believed that Hanno traveled at least as far as Senegal, and possibly as far as Cameroon or Gabon. At the end of the journey, Hanno reported finding an island populated with what? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Cutty Sark Is Launched (1869)The tea trade in the 1860s and 70s was intensely competitive, with merchant ships racing to be the first to arrive in London with that year's crop from China. It was for this purpose that the three-masted clipper Cutty Sark was originally built. She became one of the swiftest and most celebrated British clippers, but within a few years of her launch, steamships had largely supplanted clippers in the tea trade, so she began carrying other cargos. What is the origin and meaning of her name? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 George Eliot (1819)Eliot, born Mary Ann Evans, was raised with a strong religious piety but broke with orthodoxy in her 20s and turned to fiction, writing such classic Victorian novels as Silas Marner, Daniel Deronda, and Middlemarch, in which she developed a method of psychological analysis that would become a characteristic of modern fiction. Although her novels are serious in tone, they still contain humorous moments. With which philosopher did Eliot have a lengthy, scandalous affair? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,Beloved from pole to pole. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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oat opera— A film or theatrical production about the American West (i.e., a western), especially one that is clichéd or formulaic. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 St. Cecilia's Day (2021)According to her apocryphal acts, which date from the fifth century, St. Cecilia was a Roman from a noble family who was put to death for her Christian beliefs; how she became the patron saint of music and musicians is not exactly known. In 1683, a musical society was formed in London especially for the celebration of St. Cecilia's Day. It held a festival each year at which a special ode was sung. The poet John Dryden composed his "A Song for St. Cecilia's Day" in 1687 for this purpose. There are still many choirs and musical societies that bear her name today. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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