Daily Content Archive
(as of Thursday, April 20, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
maverick
| |||||||
| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
|---|---|
CommasCommas are used to connect two or more elements in a sentence, but the way in which they do this varies widely, depending on what these elements are. What is a comma splice? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
|---|---|
 The Blue WhalePerhaps the largest animal to have ever lived, the blue whale can grow to be 100 ft (30.5 m) long and weigh as much as 200 tons. It eats as much as 4 tons of krill a day, and its massive mouth can hold up to 100 tons of food and water, but its throat restricts the passage of anything wider than a beach ball. Once abundant, it was nearly hunted to extinction before being placed under the protection of the international community in 1966. What is the blue whale's only natural predator? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
|---|---|
 The Columbine High School Massacre (1999)Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were seniors at Colorado's Columbine High School when they carried out one of the deadliest school shootings in US history, killing 12 students and one teacher and injuring 21 others before taking their own lives. The incident, widely covered by the media, stirred debate about the pair's motivation for the killings, the availability of firearms, and the role of bullying, video games, and music in acts of violence. For what crime had the two been previously arrested? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
|---|---|
 Philippe Pinel (1745)After moving to Paris in 1778, Pinel, a French physician, was appointed director of the Bicêtre and Salpêtrière hospitals. His experiences there prompted him to advocate for the humane treatment of mentally ill persons—then called the insane—and for the empirical study of mental disease. He further contributed to the development of psychiatry by establishing the practice of thoroughly documenting psychiatric case histories for research. What initially inspired Pinel's interest in mental illness? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
|---|---|
 Our fear of death is like our fear that summer will be short, but when we have had our swing of pleasure, our fill of fruit, and our swelter of heat, we say we have had our day.Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
|---|---|
color outside the lines— To think or act in a way that does not conform to set rules. Likened to the way a child might color outside the lines of a coloring book. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
|---|---|
 Coober Pedy Opal Festival (2019)The South Australian town of Coober Pedy is known for its opal mines, producing about 70 percent of the world's opals. Celebrated over Easter weekend, the annual Opal Festival includes such competitive events as the mine rescue demonstration, tug-of-war, triathlons for men and women, games and races for children, and the multicultural dance and singing competition. Saturday is the main day, kicking off with a morning street parade featuring a marching band, mining equipment, and floats and culminating in a fireworks display and a dance at night. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
|---|---|
Today's topic: puzzlerebus - A puzzle in which one must decode a message consisting of pictures representing syllables and words. More... puzzle - Comes from Old French opposaile, "thing set before one," "bewildering thing"; as a verb, it first meant "be beset by difficulties." More... cabobble - To mystify, puzzle, or confuse. More... word search - A puzzle consisting of letters arranged in a grid which contains a number of hidden words written in various directions. More... | |