Daily Content Archive
(as of Wednesday, November 29, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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sacrilegious
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Forming the Second ConditionalWe use the second conditional to speak about a hypothetical situation or outcome resulting from the condition. Unlike the first conditional, we use the second conditional to talk about things that cannot or are unlikely to happen. How do we create the second conditional? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Star FortsWhen the maneuverable siege cannon came into use in the 15th century, military engineers had to rethink medieval-style fortifications, whose tall, broad walls were highly vulnerable to cannon fire. They developed the star fort, or trace italienne, a flat, tiered structure composed of low, thick walls embedded in ditches, whose complex shape allowed defensive cannons to cover interlocking fields of fire. What technologies eventually rendered the star fort's intricate geometry irrelevant? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 The Warren Commission Is Established (1963)Chaired by US Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Warren Commission was appointed by US President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the shooting of his assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. After months of investigation, it reported that Kennedy was killed by Oswald's rifle shots from the Texas School Book Depository and that Oswald's murder by Jack Ruby was not part of a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy. What later reports questioned its findings? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Empress Dowager Cixi (1835)Cixi was the Imperial consort who controlled the Chinese Qing dynasty for almost half a century. A low-ranking concubine of the Xianfeng emperor, she bore his only son, the future Tongzhi emperor, in 1856. After the emperor's death, Cixi joined a triumviral regency that governed in the name of her son, who was only six at his accession. During that period, the Taiping and Nian rebellions were put down and the government was briefly revitalized. What happened when Cixi's son died in 1875? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Promises and pie-crusts are made to be broken.Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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accident of birth— Any and all particulars surrounding one's birth (physical characteristics, social background, and even nationality) that are considered a result of parentage and the specific circumstances of birth, and are therefore entirely out of one's control. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 St. Andrew's Eve (Poland) (2019)The eve of St. Andrew's Day is a special night for young Polish girls who want to find husbands. They play Andrzejki, or "Andrew's games," a kind of fortune telling. They break off dry branches from cherry trees, place them in wet sand, and tend them carefully for the next few weeks. If the branch blooms by Christmas, it is believed that they will marry within the year. Pouring liquid wax into cold water is another popular method of foretelling their romantic futures. The shapes into which the wax hardens often provide clues with which they can read their fate. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: towertower - A group of giraffes. More... spire, steeple - A spire is the tall pointed roof of a tower or the tall pointed structure on top of a steeple; a steeple is the tower plus the spire. More... ziggurat - A tower in the form of a terraced pyramid. More... Big Ben - Not the clock in the tower of the Houses of Parliament but the bell itself. More... | |