Daily Content Archive
(as of Wednesday, July 1, 2015)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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cesspit
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| Article of the Day | |
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 MedinaMedina is a city in Saudi Arabia, 110 mi (177 km) inland from the Red Sea in a well-watered oasis where fruit, dates, vegetables, and grain are raised. Muhammad gained control of the city in 622 and used it as a base for converting and conquering Arabia. It grew rapidly until 661, when the Umayyad dynasty transferred the capital of the caliphate to Damascus. Pilgrimages to Mecca usually include a side trip to Medina, where the Prophet's Mosque houses the tombs of what important Islamic figures? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Sony Introduces the Walkman (1979)Sony's first truly portable cassette player, the Walkman, was originally developed for a company chairman who wanted to be able to listen to music on long plane rides. He was impressed, and less than a year later, the revolutionary device hit the market. Sales soon exploded, cementing the Walkman's place in pop culture. It remained popular throughout the 1990s, before CDs and mp3s supplanted cassettes. Who invented the portable personal stereo cassette player years before the Walkman's debut? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646)Leibniz was a German philosopher and mathematician who greatly expanded the field of calculus. He also perfected the binary number system—the basis for modern computing—and constructed one of the first practical calculators. A jack-of-all-trades, Leibniz worked on mechanical devices, delved into the study of logic, was a historian and lawyer at times, and is considered one of the fathers of geology. In the early 1700s, he became embroiled in a controversy with Isaac Newton over what issue? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 It's only those who do nothing that make no mistakes, I suppose.Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Somalia Independence Day (2020)Somalia became an independent, unified country on July 1, 1960. In colonial times, Somalia was divided up between Britain and Italy. The northern part of the region was British Somaliland, and other areas belonged to Italy. On July 1, 1960, both areas were united as the Republic of Somalia. Since a government overthrow in 1991, however, the country has disintegrated into the Republic of Somaliland and the Republic of Puntland, neither of which is recognized by what is left of the Republic of Somalia, represented by the transitional national government established in October 2000. More... | |