Daily Content Archive
(as of Wednesday, August 10, 2016)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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abridgment
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Defining the PeriodThe period (also known as a full stop, especially in British English) is a punctuation mark ( . ) primarily used to indicate the end of a sentence. It appears as a single dot on the bottom line of the text, and it comes immediately after what in a sentence? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Naga JolokiaOminously known as the "ghost chili" or "poison chili," the naga jolokia was once the hottest chili pepper in the world, as certified by Guinness World Records in 2007. Originally grown in northeastern India and Bangladesh, the naga jolokia has measured over 1,000,000 on the Scoville scale, a system developed to measure the "hotness" or piquancy of chili peppers. In comparison, jalapeño peppers range from 2,500 to 8,000. What pepper has since surpassed it as the world's hottest? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Magellan Space Probe Reaches Venus (1990)The first planetary spacecraft to be launched from a space shuttle, Magellan took 15 months to reach its destination, arriving in orbit around the second planet from the Sun in August 1990. It was then put to work generating high-resolution maps of Venus's surface and measuring the planet's gravity. Four years later, with its mission complete, Magellan plunged into Venus's tremendously dense atmosphere and disintegrated. What do Magellan's images reveal about the planet? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Henri Nestlé (1814)Born in Germany, Nestlé was the 11th of 14 children—only half of whom survived to adulthood. After apprenticing to a pharmacist in the 1830s, he began to work on an infant food that could serve as a substitute for breast milk for struggling babies. Combining milk, flour, and sugar, he created the first commercial infant formula and founded what is today the largest processed foods company in the world. The Nestlé company logo is derived from the family coat of arms, which includes what image? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 To live was then in itself a delight, because living implied seeing.Edwin Abbott (1838-1926) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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with a heavy hand— In an excessive, authoritarian, or oppressive way or manner. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Perseids Meteor Shower (2020)A meteor shower occurs when a number of meteors enter the Earth's atmosphere at approximately the same time and place. Since the year 36 CE there have been records of an annual meteor shower known as the Perseids (because it appears to originate in the constellation Perseus) that is most observable during the nights of August 10-12. Observers everywhere except the South Pole can see as many as 60 meteors an hour streak across the sky on what is often referred to as the Night of the Shooting Stars. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: thighham, hamstring - Originally, the part of the leg behind the knee was called the ham, and then the tendon near the ham was the hamstring; by extension, the ham became the thigh and buttock together. More... haunch - The buttock and thigh together. More... hockshin, gambrel - The underside of the thigh is the hockshin or gambrel. More... thigh - Etymologically, the "plump" part of the leg, from an Indo-European base meaning "swell" or "fat." More... | |