Daily Content Archive
(as of Thursday, July 25, 2019)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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eschew
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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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 TianTian is one of the oldest Chinese terms for the cosmos and the supreme power over humans and lesser gods in indigenous Chinese religion. As a god, Tian is an impersonal power, in contrast to the supreme ruler Shangdi, with whom Tian is nevertheless closely identified. Scholars have long debated whether Tian rewarded and punished human actions or whether events merely followed Tian's order and principles. The word Tian has how many meanings? 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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 The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness.Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) | |
| 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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 Festivities for the Day of National Rebellion (2019)This three-day national holiday in Cuba commemorates an attack that took place on July 26, 1953, when rebel forces led by Fidel Castro struck the Moncada army barracks in Santiago de Cuba. It is remembered as the beginning of the rebellion that ousted the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959. The holiday is an occasion for displays of national pride and mass rallies. Crowds of 100,000 are common in Havana, where a carnival, live music, singing, dancing and flag waving mark the occasion. Santiago de Cuba also has a large carnival, and other cities host celebrations as well. 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... | |