Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, November 7, 2021)| Word of the Day | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
augury
| |||||||
| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
|---|---|
Third ConditionalThird conditional sentences have a past perfect verb in the "if clause" and have a past participle verb in the main clause, preceded by the auxiliary verbs "would have." What do third conditional sentences describe? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
|---|---|
 Cult of PersonalityOften associated with dictators, cults of personality arise when an individual uses mass media and propaganda to create an idealized public image through unquestioning flattery and praise. As democracy expanded in the 19th century, political leaders lost absolute power and sought to regain it through cults of personality, aided by the emergent fields of photography and advertising. Cults of personality are not just limited to politics, however. What athlete is said to have created one? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
|---|---|
 Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapses (1940)Four months after it opened to traffic, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed into Puget Sound in Washington state. During construction, workers had noticed that the deck demonstrated an unusual amount of vertical movement in windy conditions, but few expected "Galloping Gertie" to suffer such a catastrophic failure. The collapse led to major changes in suspension bridge design. Thankfully, no people were killed when the bridge came down. What was the only fatality caused by the collapse? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
|---|---|
 Konrad Lorenz (1903)As a boy, Lorenz nursed sick animals from the local zoo. He became a zoologist and studied the behavior of birds, emphasizing innate as opposed to learned behaviors and focusing on imprinting, a rapid learning process in young animals that establishes behavior patterns. Lorenz later examined human thought and aggression, making controversial analogies between human and animal behavior in his 1963 book On Aggression. For his scientific efforts, he shared the 1973 Nobel Prize with whom? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
|---|---|
 Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity ... ? Surely all this is not without meaning ... But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.Herman Melville (1819-1891) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
|---|---|
no cover— No additional cost for entry or entertainment (called a cover charge), as at a bar, club, or restaurant. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
|---|---|
 American Indian Heritage Month (2021)The first general American Indian Day was observed on the second Saturday in May 1916, but since 1995, the month of November has been observed as American Indian Heritage Month. Although the largest Native American populations can be found in Oklahoma, Arizona, California, New Mexico, and North Carolina, many other states have come up with ways to draw attention to their unique contribution to American culture. Most celebrations focus on educational and promotional events, displays of Native American art and dance, and agricultural fairs. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
|---|---|
Today's topic: secondsblipvert - A TV advertisement of a few seconds' length. More... centiday - A period of 14 minutes 24 seconds, a hundredth of a day, used especially in the study of plant growth. More... fireflies, lightning bug - Fireflies glow for a while but die down; lightning bugs flash their taillights for only a few seconds and never in the same place twice. More... | |