Daily Content Archive
(as of Tuesday, May 15, 2018)| Word of the Day | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
copycat
| |||||||
| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
|---|---|
Subordinating ConjunctionsSubordinating conjunctions are used to create complex sentences containing one independent clause, or main clause, and one dependent, or subordinate, clause. What two things does a subordinating conjunction do in a sentence? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
|---|---|
 TimurTamerlane, or "Timur the Lame," was a 14th-century Turco-Mongol conqueror who claimed descent from Genghis Khan and considered himself the restorer of the Mongol Empire. After subduing his rivals in central Asia, he turned his attention to Persia and, later, to India, Syria, and Iraq. His conquests ultimately reached from India and Russia to the Mediterranean. A cruel conqueror, Tamlerlane is said to have massacred how many millions of people? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
|---|---|
 US Supreme Court Declares Standard Oil an "Unreasonable" Monopoly (1911)By 1880, through elimination of competitors, mergers, and railroad rebates, John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil controlled the refining of up to 95 percent of all oil produced in the US. In 1892, the Ohio Supreme Court ordered the trust dissolved, but it continued to operate. Exposed in Ida Tarbell's History of the Standard Oil Company in 1904, it was broken up in 1911 after a lengthy antitrust suit by the US government. What current oil companies have ties to the former Standard Oil? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
|---|---|
 L. Frank Baum (1856)Baum was an American author of more than 70 children's books who is best known for penning The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He moved from New York to South Dakota in 1888. When his newspaper there failed, he moved to Illinois and found work as a journalist. His first children's book, Mother Goose in Prose (1897), was followed by Father Goose: His Book, an immediate bestseller. In 2006, Baum's descendants apologized for editorials in which he called for the extermination of whom? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
|---|---|
 If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.Sun Tzu (544 BC-496 BC) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
|---|---|
a bone to pick— An issue to discuss—typically one that is a source of annoyance for the speaker. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Fiesta de San Isidro (Metepec, Mexico) (2019)Although indigenous fertility rites were outlawed when Mexico was conquered by the Spaniards and converted to Catholicism, a few pre-Hispanic festivities have survived—often overlaid with Christian meaning. One of these is the Festival of St. Isidore in Metepec, where farmers honor their patron saint around the time of his feast day, May 15. The men dress up as women and accompany their plows and oxen, which have been decorated with flowers, in a procession to the fields. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
|---|---|
Today's topic: plateassiette - A prepared dish of food, French for "plate, course of a meal." More... dish, plate - Dish is a more general term and plate is more specialized. More... plate - Etymologically, something "flat," from Latin plattus, "flat," and Greek platys, "broad." More... placard - Comes from French plaquier, "to plate; lay flat." More... | |