Daily Content Archive
(as of Wednesday, April 26, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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shutout
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Subjunctive MoodThe subjunctive mood refers to verbs that are used to describe hypothetical or non-real actions, events, or situations. What is the subjective mood most commonly used to express? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Operation Praying MantisIn April 1988, US naval forces launched Operation Praying Mantis, attacking several Iranian targets in retaliation for the mining of an American warship in the Persian Gulf. The battle, the largest for American surface forces since World War II, was the first surface-to-surface missile engagement in US Navy history. It resulted in the sinking of two Iranian warships and three speedboats and helped pressure Iran into a ceasefire that ended its eight-year war with what neighboring country? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Nuclear Reactor at Chernobyl Plant Explodes (1986)The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is regarded as the worst nuclear accident in history. Radioactive debris from the disaster drifted across parts of the western Soviet Union and Europe. Large areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly contaminated, resulting in the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of people and a disputed number of deaths. The incident set off an international outcry over the dangers posed by radioactive emissions. What caused the accident? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Charles Richter (1900)Richter was an American seismologist best known for creating the Richter scale, which quantifies the magnitude of earthquakes by assigning each quake a single number based on the measurement of seismic waves. The scale is logarithmic, meaning that each increase of one unit represents a 10-fold increase in the amplitude of the waves. Though the scale has no theoretical upper limit, the most severe quakes have not exceeded a scale value of 9. What earthquake measurement method succeeded Richter's? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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set (someone or something) loose— To make free or give up control of something or someone; to release or discharge something or someone, as from confinement. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 John Audubon Day (2022)John James Audubon (1785-1851) was America's foremost ornithological illustrator. After his death in 1851, Audubon's wife Lucy returned to teaching to support herself. One of her students, George Bird Grinnell, in 1886 organized the Audubon Society for the study and protection of birds. Today there are many branches of this organization, known as the National Audubon Society, and its members honor Audubon on his birthday, April 26. In some states, Audubon Day and Arbor Day are celebrated together by planting trees in bird sanctuaries. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: inhabitantinfernal - An inhabitant of the underworld can be called an infernal. More... sherpa - Literally means "inhabitant of an eastern country." More... aborigine - From Classical Latin meaning "ancestors," it was spelled with a capital A as the name of the primeval Romans; the first people called aborigines were the original inhabitants of Italy and Greece and aborigine was specifically applied to the inhabitants of a country ab origine, "from the beginning." More... sylvans - Natives or inhabitants of forests or woods. More... | |