Daily Content Archive
(as of Wednesday, September 14, 2016)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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hegira
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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PhrasesGrammatical phrases are groups of two or more words that work together to perform a single grammatical function in a sentence. What is an appositive phrase? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 ExabytesAn exabyte is a unit of information or computer storage equal to one quintillion bytes—an amount roughly represented by the number 1 followed by 18 zeros. Though the term is rarely encountered in any practical context, a popular, hotly contested assertion, which often cites as support a project at the UC Berkeley School of Information, is that "all words ever spoken by human beings" can be represented by approximately 5 exabytes of data. What is meant by the related term "exaflood"? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 First Man-Made Object Reaches the Moon (1959)In the early years of space exploration, the US and USSR launched numerous probes in their race to explore outer space and the Moon in particular. The first probes were intended either to pass very close to the Moon—performing a flyby—or crash directly into it—a maneuver known as a hard landing. The Soviets were the first to succeed in the latter objective. Luna 2 impacted the lunar surface on September 14, 1959. What did Premier Nikita Khrushchev present to the US president the next day? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Jan Masaryk (1886)Masaryk, a diplomat and politician in newly independent Czechoslovakia, was named ambassador to Britain in 1925. Following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, he became foreign minister of the Czech government in exile in London. He supported cooperation with the Soviet Union and maintained his post after the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948. Two weeks later, Masaryk was found dead outside his window in the Foreign Ministry. What are the conflicting explanations for his death? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.Jane Austen (1775-1817) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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catch (the) headlines— To be featured on the headlines of news articles, as due to being particularly important, popular, fashionable, etc. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Día de los Charros (2021)Today's Mexican charros are more sportsmen than cowboys or ranchers. On September 14, the day before the Mexico Festival of Independence, many of the charro associations organize parades and rodeos. The jaripeo, or rodeo, generally consists of 10 or more events involving special horse-handling skills and exhibitions of various tricks. Perhaps the most difficult trick is the paso de la muerte (death's pass), in which the charro pursues a wild horse, switching from his own horse's saddle to the back of the wild horse at full gallop. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: pursuitdachshund - German for "badger hound," from its original breeding purpose to pursue a badger (etc.) that has taken refuge in a burrow. More... invite - Comes from Latin invitare, from an Indo-European root meaning "to go after something, pursue with vigor, desire." More... logology - The pursuit of word puzzles; also the science of words. More... sue - From Latin sequi, "follow," it first meant "follow, go in pursuit of." More... | |