Daily Content Archive
(as of Friday, August 13, 2021)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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reverberate
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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PrepositionsPrepositions are used to express the relationship of a noun or pronoun (or another grammatical element functioning as a noun) to the rest of the sentence. How do prepositions differ from infinitives? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Boston's Big DigThe tangled roadways of Boston, Massachusetts, laid out before the age of the automobile, became a traffic nightmare after cars arrived. The Central Artery/Tunnel Project, nicknamed the "Big Dig," sought to fix the problem by rerouting the city's chief highway into a tunnel and building additional tunnels and bridges. Though conceived in the 1970s, the Big Dig was not completed until 2007, thanks to skyrocketing costs and constant setbacks. What challenges arose during course of the project? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Cortés Conquers Tenochtitlán (1521)Tenochtitlán was the flourishing capital of the Aztec Empire with an estimated population of between 200,000 and 300,000, a unique system of lake agriculture known as chinampas, and a ceremonial precinct that contained a great pyramid sacred to the Aztec war god Huitzilopochtli. Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés was chased from the city in 1520, but returned a year later, took the city after a three-month siege, and razed it. What tragedy helped Cortés to defeat the Aztecs this time? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Frederick Sanger (1918)After earning his PhD at Cambridge University in 1943, British biochemist Frederick Sanger decided to continue conducting his research at his alma mater. He remained there for the entirety of his four-decade career, making discoveries about the structure of proteins, particularly insulin, as well as DNA sequencing that would earn him not one but two Nobel prizes. He was only the fourth person in history to have earned this distinction. Who are the other three two-time Nobel laureates? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 To speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government.Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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yardarm to yardarm— outdated Really close together. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Nemoralia (2022)The Nemoralia was an ancient Roman festival in honor of the goddess Diana held at Nemi, in the territory of Aricia about 16 miles southeast of Rome. Diana was worshipped throughout Rome and Latium (now western Italy) on August 13, the day on which her temple on the Aventine Hill had been dedicated by Servius Tullius. But her most famous cult was in Aricia, where the Nemoralia was observed to protect the vines and the fruit trees. It is still common in some parts of the Orthodox Christian Church for worshippers to make offerings of new wheat and cakes to the Theotokos on that day. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: hirefreelance - Comes from the knights whose lances were free for hire and who were not pledged to one master; originally, a freelance was a free companion or a person free of occupational or political party obligation or allegiance. More... hire - As a noun, it originally meant the payment for the use of something. More... claque - A group of people hired to applaud an act or performer. More... dry lease, wet lease - To rent an aircraft without a crew is a dry lease; a wet lease is to hire an aircraft with a crew. More... | |