Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, May 30, 2015)| Word of the Day | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
agile
| |||||||
| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
|---|---|
Focusing AdverbsFocusing adverbs are used to draw attention to a particular part of a clause. They frequently point to verb phrases. Where can focusing adverbs be placed in a sentence? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
|---|---|
 The Winchester Mystery HouseThe Winchester Mystery House is a famous California mansion that is reputed to be haunted. Sarah Winchester, the widow of a gun magnate, began building the Winchester Mystery House in 1884 after a medium advised her to construct a house to appease the ghosts of all those killed by Winchester rifles. Construction continued for 38 years, since Sarah Winchester believed that if she stopped working on the house, she would die. What significance does the number 13 have in the mansion? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
|---|---|
 Old West Outlaw Pearl Hart Robs a Stagecoach (1899)Hart was an American outlaw whose notoriety stemmed primarily from the fact that she was female. Her early life was fairly ordinary. She grew up wealthy and eloped at 16. In 1893, after seeing Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, she left her abusive husband and went west, where she acquired a taste for cigars, liquor, and morphine. In 1899, she helped rob a stagecoach, making away with over $400. She was apprehended, escaped, was recaptured, and then tried for her crimes. Why was she later pardoned? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
|---|---|
 René Barrientos (1919)Barrientos was elected vice president of Bolivia in 1964, but he soon broke with the president and joined other army officers in a coup. He was installed as head of a military junta and became the sole president after winning the 1966 elections. He launched a moderate—albeit military—administration, retaining the reforms instituted by his predecessors. Three years later, he died in a helicopter crash. Why did he once jump out of an airplane with a parachute that had earlier failed to open? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
|---|---|
 Her pupils were at once her salvation and her despair. They gave her the means of supporting life, but they made life hardly worth supporting.P. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
|---|---|
have (one's) name taken— In football (soccer), to receive a yellow card (and thus have one's name recorded in the referee's booklet). More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
|---|---|
 Kaamatan Festival (2017)Kaamatan is a festival and public holiday in the state of Sabah in Malaysia. The festival is celebrated by the Kadazandusun people, the largest indigenous ethnic group in Sabah. Irrigated rice is their principal crop, and the harvest is a ritual dedicated to the Bambaazon, or rice spirit. If the harvest has been good, this is a thanksgiving; if it has been poor, the ritual is an appeasement of the spirit. This festival is celebrated during the month of May with carnivals, special exhibits, sports competitions, and a regatta, all leading up to the harvest rituals on May 30-31 in Penampang. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
|---|---|
Today's topic: slopingpitched - Describing a "steeply downward sloping" roof built at an angle. More... fastigiate - Means "sloping up to a point." More... slalom - From Norwegian sla, "sloping," and lam, "track." More... squint - Short for the obsolete asquint, which may have come from Dutch schuin, "sideways, sloping." More... | |