Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, July 10, 2021)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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necromancer
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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SlashesThe slash ( / )—technically known as a virgule but also called a slant, solidus, or stroke—serves a number of purposes in writing. What are they? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Sabiha Gökçen, First Female Combat PilotWhen Gökçen was 10 years old, Turkey became a republic. As it Westernized during the presidency of her adoptive father, Kemal Atatürk, Turkish women gained more freedom, securing the right to vote in 1934. A year later, Gökçen enrolled in the Türkkusu Flight School as its first female pupil. After attending the Air Force Academy, she became the first female combat pilot. While with the Turkish Air Force, she logged some 8,000 flight hours, including combat missions. Why had Atatürk adopted her? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 The Seveso Disaster (1976)Around noon on July 10, 1976, an explosion occurred in the ICMESA manufacturing plant north of Milan, Italy, releasing a poisonous cloud of dioxin gas. Although dioxin is toxic—it was an ingredient in the herbicide Agent Orange used during the Vietnam War—evacuation efforts began slowly. Named for the small Italian town most affected, the Seveso disaster led to legislation aimed at preventing chemical accidents. How many animals were slaughtered to prevent toxins from entering the food chain? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Marcel Proust (1871)One of the great literary figures of the modern age, Proust was a French author who is best known for À la recherche du temps perdu, his 3,200-page masterpiece. After the death of his mother, the asthmatic Proust increasingly withdrew to eccentric seclusion, where he wrote his multivolume, semiautobiographical work. The discursive novel explores issues of human psychology, time, memory, and desire, but Proust died before completing it. What is the English translation of his novel's title? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 When one fib becomes due as it were, you must forge another to take up the old acceptance; and so the stock of your lies in circulation inevitably multiplies, and the danger of detection increases every day.William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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long-run— (used before a noun) Involving, maturing after, or lasting for a long period of time. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Bahamas Independence Day (2021)The Bahama Islands gained independence from Great Britain at 12:01 a.m. on this day in 1973. The islands had been a British colony for nearly 250 years, but are now a commonwealth, with their own prime minister and parliament. Businesses are closed on the tenth, a legal holiday, but festivities go on for a week with parades and celebrations. A fireworks display at Clifford Park in Nassau on July 10 tops off the celebrations. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: providedub - Meaning "to provide a film with a soundtrack," it is an abbreviation of "double." More... endow - First meant "provide a dower or dowry." More... refurbish, refurnish, redecorate, renovate - Refurbish means to "clean up again," refurnish means "to provide with new furnishings," redecorate means "to add new decoration(s)," and renovate means "renew or restore to as-new condition." More... improvise - Etymologically, if you improvise something, it is because it has not been "provided" for in advance, from Latin improvisus, "unforeseen." More... | |