Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, June 14, 2015)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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destitute
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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PluralsPlurals of nouns are used to indicate when there is more than one person, place, animal, or thing. The normal method for making nouns plural is to add an "-s." What are some irregular plurals? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Route 66Also known as the "The Main Street of America," Route 66 was established in 1926 and ran from Chicago, Illinois, in a south-westerly direction to Los Angeles, California, for a total of 2,448 miles (3,939 km). It was a major path of the migrants who went west, especially during the 1930s, and it supported the economies of the communities through which it passed. More direct routes and increasingly sophisticated engineering techniques led to its being decommissioned in what year? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Vatican Abolishes Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1966)Compiled by official Roman Catholic censors, Index Librorum Prohibitorum—"List of Prohibited Books"—was a catalog of works considered dangerous to the faith or morals of Catholics. The Index was never a complete catalog of forbidden reading; rather, it contained only works that the ecclesiastical authority was asked to act on. The first catalog of banned books to be called an index was published in 1559. Its publication ceased in 1966. What were some of the works listed over the years? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Karl Landsteiner (1868)Landsteiner was an Austrian-born American medical researcher who was awarded the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the four basic human blood groups—A, B, O, and AB—which enabled the first successful blood transfusion to be performed in 1907. He was also involved in the discovery of the polio virus, and he helped identify the human blood protein known as the Rh factor. In the 1930s, Landsteiner successfully cultured the organism that causes what disease? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 The best of men cannot suspend their fate:The good die early, and the bad die late. Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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I'll be hanged if I (do something)— I am determined not to do something. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Rice-Planting Festival at Osaka (2015)There are many rituals associated with the growing of rice in Japanese farming communities. In many rural celebrations, young women in costume perform rituals including planting seedlings while singing rice-planting songs to the accompaniment of pipes and drums. On June 14 in Osaka, thousands congregate to observe a group of young kimono-clad women plant rice and sing in the sacred fields near the Sumiyoshi Shrine. Working rhythmically to the music, the young women appear to be participating in a dance rather than the hard work of planting. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: shockingchurch key - Started out as slang for bottle opener in the early 1950s and was considered mildly shocking, even sacrilegious. More... flagrant, blatant - Flagrant implies shocking and reprehensible, while blatant is obvious, contrived, and usually obnoxious; flagrant is a stronger term than blatant. More... forbysen, bysen - Forbysen is an "example or parable"; bysen is a "shocking thing." More... tingle - From Middle English, possibly a variant of tinkle, its original meaning was "response to a loud noise" and "response to hearing something shocking." More... | |