Daily Content Archive
(as of Wednesday, July 25, 2018)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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peddle
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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"It" as a Dummy PronounJust like the dummy pronoun "there," "it" is also used as a pronoun without an antecedent in sentences. "It" is commonly used as a dummy pronoun in discussions of what three topics? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Albanian Sworn VirginsIn parts of northern Albania, families follow a code of ethics called Kanun. This code allows women to take a vow to remain virgins for life. In return, they are treated as men in society. Once the vow is taken, Albanian sworn virgins dress like men, do traditional men's work, and are even referred to with masculine pronouns. Women who take the vow are said to do so for various reasons, including to avoid an arranged marriage. Can the decision be revoked? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Svetlana Savitskaya Becomes the First Woman to Perform a Spacewalk (1984)Savitskaya is a former Soviet female aviator and cosmonaut who flew aboard Soyuz T-7 in 1982, becoming the second woman in space some 19 years after Valentina Tereshkova. She logged nearly 20 days in space during her career, including three and a half hours spent outside the Salyut 7 space station in 1984, when she became the first woman to perform a spacewalk. Before becoming a cosmonaut, she was a test and sport pilot and a parachutist. What world records did she set? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Louise Brown (1978)Brown was the first baby to be conceived by in vitro fertilization (IVF), a procedure used to overcome infertility in which a woman's eggs are removed, fertilized with sperm outside the body, and then inserted into the uterus. Now a commonplace procedure, IVF was developed in the 1970s by British medical researchers Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards and was subject to much criticism before Brown's birth. Who was the first woman conceived through IVF to give birth naturally to a baby of her own? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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inopportune moment— An unfortunate or inconvenient moment in time. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Furrinalia (2018)Furrina (or Furina) was an ancient Roman deity whose reason for existence has been largely forgotten. She might have been associated with a spring or springs, and some experts regard her as a spirit of the darkness. Others say she was the goddess of robbers. All that is known for certain is that she possessed a grove (on the slopes of the Janiculum, a ridge near the Tiber River), a festival (the Furrinalia, on July 25), and her own flamen, or priest, named Furrinalis. Although Furrina belongs to the earliest of Roman religions, the Furrinalia continued to be observed in later Roman times. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: saddleapishamore - A blanket used under a saddle. More... col - A saddle between two mountain peaks, from Latin collum, "neck." More... caparison - A cloth or covering spread over the saddle or harness of a horse, often ornamented; this word can also mean "housings, trappings." More... larigos - The rings on a saddle through which the straps pass. More... | |