Daily Content Archive
(as of Thursday, April 19, 2018)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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reaper
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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BracketsBrackets ( [ ] ), sometimes known as square brackets, are usually used within quoted speech to indicate that a writer has added material to the quotation. What are the different types of brackets? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The Year without a SummerIt is now widely thought that the eruption of Indonesia's Mount Tambora—the largest in over 1,600 years—led to a widespread reduction in temperature in 1816 that destroyed crops and prompted food shortages and famine across the globe. The event became the primary motivation for western expansion in America, and the lack of horse feed inspired research into horseless travel. What novel is said to have been written by an author forced to stay inside by the unseasonable weather in July 1816? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger Is Elected Pope (2005)Ordained in 1951, the German-born Ratzinger came to be regarded as the most influential person in the Catholic hierarchy after the pope through his high-profile positions within the church and his uncompromising stance on Catholic teachings. He presided over the funeral of Pope John Paul II as dean of the College of Cardinals and, after just two days and four ballots, was elected pope in one of the fastest papal elections in a century. Why did he pray not to be elected during the papal conclave? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Eliot Ness (1903)Ness was 26 years old when he was hired as a special agent of the US Department of Justice to head its Chicago Prohibition bureau, with the express purpose of breaking up the bootlegging network of Al Capone. He formed a nine-man team of unbribable officers known as "the Untouchables." Numerous attempts were made on his life, and one of his friends was killed, but he eventually helped take down Capone, who was convicted on tax evasion charges. What did Ness do after Prohibition ended? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 A very few—as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men—serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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have nothing to do— To have no tasks or actions that one must complete or undertake; to have nothing with which to occupy one's time. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Annual Lantern Ceremony (2020)The Annual Lantern Ceremony takes place each year on the eve of Patriots' Day, a public holiday in Massachusetts and Maine on the third Monday in April. The ceremony is held at the Old North Church in Boston, where, on April 18, 1775, the church sexton displayed two lanterns from the steeple, signaling Paul Revere's message that the British would come to Lexington and Concord across the Charles River. The Annual Lantern Ceremony commemorates the lighting of the two lamps. The centerpiece of the ceremony each year is a keynote address by a notable leader of the Boston area or beyond. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: taughtacademy - Came from Akademos, the man or demigod for whom Plato's garden, where he taught, was named. More... pedagogue - A Roman slave who took children to school and on outings, but also taught them—from Greek ped, "child," and agein, "to lead." More... recant - Can mean "sing again"; its usual meaning stresses the withdrawing or denying of something professed or taught. More... doctor, physician - Doctor is derived from Latin doctus, "having been taught; learned," from docere, "to teach"; physician comes from Latin physica, "natural science; physics." More... | |