Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, May 7, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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pandemonium
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Degrees of Comparison - AdverbsJust like adjectives, adverbs have comparative and superlative degrees; adverbs in their basic forms are sometimes known as being in the positive degree. What do superlative adverbs identify? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The Deadly Yellow RiverStretching 3,395 miles (5,464 km), the Yellow River, or Huang He, is the world's sixth longest river. Called the "the cradle of Chinese civilization" because its basin is the birthplace of the northern Chinese civilizations, the oft-flooding river has also earned the nickname "China's Sorrow." Its floods—more than 1,500 in the last 3 to 4 millennia—have caused some of the deadliest natural disasters in human history and claimed millions of lives. How was the river once used as a weapon of war? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 RMS Lusitania Sunk by German U-Boat (1915)The Lusitania was a British ocean liner that was sunk off the Irish coast—an area that the ship's crew had been warned to avoid—by a German U-boat during World War I. The ship's submersion took only 18 minutes, and nearly 1,200 people died. Many questions surround the incident, including why the ship sank so quickly, what caused a secondary explosion, and whether or not the vessel was transporting contraband munitions. What did dive teams recently reveal about the ship's cargo? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Eva Perón (1919)Eva Perón was an actress who became a political and cultural icon as the wife of Argentine president Juan Perón. When Juan entered office in 1946, Eva became a powerful though unofficial political leader alongside her husband. Commonly known by the affectionate diminutive "Evita," she presided over the creation of a charitable foundation that gave the poor access to healthcare and built schools and whole communities for them. Why was Evita's corpse hidden for 16 years after her death? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Misfortune, n.: The kind of fortune that never misses.Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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stoop labour— Hard, physical labour requiring one to bend over, especially that which would be done on a farm. Primarily heard in UK. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Festa di San Nicola (2022)The Festa di San Nicola (Festival of St. Nicholas) is celebrated in Italy on the anniversary of the transfer of the saint's relics by a group of 11th-century sailors from Bari. Thousands of pilgrims come to the Basilica of San Nicola in Bari, Puglia, to worship at the saint's tomb and to ask for his help. There is a procession on this day in which a group of Barese sailors take the saint's image down to the water, where it is placed on a flower-decked boat and taken out to sea. At night the statue is returned to its place of honor on the altar of San Nicola's crypt. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: micemurine - Means "pertaining to mice or rodents." More... muscle - Comes from Latin musculus, "little mouse," as the ancient Romans thought their muscles wriggled like mice. More... mussel - Also gets its name from Latin musculus. More... dormouse - A rodent but not a mouse, it may be a corrupted form of French dormeus, "sleepy." More... | |