Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, July 29, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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tenuity
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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"Wh-" Questions"Wh-" questions (or "question word questions") are questions that seek information by posing a question with a "wh-" question word ("who," "what," "where," "when," "why," and "how"). What kind of answer do these questions seek? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 AutostereogramsAutostereograms are optical illusions of depth that are designed to trick the brain into perceiving a three-dimensional scene in a two-dimensional image. The simplest type, known as a wallpaper autostereogram, consists of horizontally repeating patterns that appear to float in the air above the background. In order to perceive the 3D shapes, the brain must overcome the normally automatic coordination between focusing and convergence. What are the two ways that an autostereogram can be viewed? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Discovery of Dwarf Planet Eris Is Announced (2005)Though Eris was first photographed in 2003, scientists working at the Palomar Observatory did not realize that they had captured pictures of a previously unknown planet until re-analyzing the images in 2005. That year, news of the newly discovered planet was announced. Slightly larger than Pluto, the icy dwarf planet has its own moon, Dysnomia, and is one of the most distant objects in the solar system. Before its official naming in 2006, it was popularly known by the name of what TV character? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805)Tocqueville was a French political scientist, historian, and politician. Born into an aristocratic family with ties to the king, his future in government was jeopardized by a revolution in 1830. To distance himself from the trying political situation at home, he embarked on a government-sanctioned mission to the US. Out of it came his best-known work, Democracy in America—the first analytical study of the strengths and weaknesses of US society. What conclusions did Tocqueville draw in it? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Connoisseur, n.: A specialist who knows everything about something and nothing about anything else.Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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bad omen— A sign, either real or imagined, of ill fortune or catastrophe in the future. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Fête des Vignerons (2019)Held only five times during each of the 19th and 20th centuries in Vevey, Switzerland, the Fête des Vignerons is a pageant of music, dance, and song depicting the passage of the seasons in winegrowing country and honoring the most talented workers in the vineyards. It lasts more than two weeks and has a cast of thousands, drawn from the local population. The pageant takes place in an open-air theater, specially constructed each time the festival is held, with Lake Geneva and the mountains beyond as a backdrop. The festival was last held in 1999. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: leavingdrawing room - A shortening of withdrawing room, the room to which the ladies withdrew, leaving the men to smoking and drinking. More... egression - The action of going out or leaving a place. More... bequeath - Etymologically, what you bequeath is what you "say" you will leave someone in your will—but the original sense "say, utter" died out, leaving the legal sense. More... exclaustration - Being expelled from or leaving a religious retreat; it is also the return to secular life by someone who has been released from their religious vows. More... | |