Daily Content Archive
(as of Friday, September 27, 2019)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Defining the Future PerfectWe use the future perfect tense to say that something will finish or be completed at a specific point in the future. We also often include durations of time to indicate how long something has been happening once a future moment in time is reached. Can you identify the future perfect in the following sentence? "This June, I will have lived in New York for four years." More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The Mayerling IncidentThe Mayerling Incident was the apparent murder-suicide of 30-year-old Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria and his lover, 17-year-old Baroness Maria Vetsera, in 1889. His father, the emperor, had objected to the affair and reportedly ordered them to end the relationship. Rudolf became despondent and allegedly formed a suicide pact with his mistress. Although their deaths were officially declared a double suicide, efforts to disguise the facts provoked many rumors, including what conspiracy theories? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Pope Urban VII Dies Just 13 Days into Papacy (1590)Urban VII was chosen to succeed Sixtus V as pope on September 15, 1590. His death from malaria 13 days later made his the shortest papal reign in history. His very short time as pope nevertheless gave rise to the world's first known public smoking ban when he threatened to excommunicate anyone who "took tobacco in the porchway of or inside a church, whether it be by chewing it, smoking it with a pipe, or sniffing it in powdered form through the nose." Who succeeded him? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Grazia Deledda (1871)Influenced by the verismo—"realism"—school, Nobel Prize-winning Italian novelist Grazia Deledda wrote her first stories while just a teen and was still having her works published after her death. Her work is lyric and in part naturalistic and combines sympathy and humor with occasional touches of violence. In her approximately 40 novels, the ancient ways of her native Sardinia often come into conflict with modern mores. What are her most famous works? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 A steady hand in governing of military affairs is more requisite than in times of peace, because an error committed in war may, perhaps, prove irremediable.Francis Bacon (1561-1626) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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party crasher— One who attends a party without having been invited. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Maskal (2019)Maskal is a Christian festival in Ethiopia to commemorate the True Cross, the cross on which Christ was said to have been crucified. In communities throughout the nation, a tall pole called a demara is set up and topped with a cross. Families place smaller demaras against the big one, and in the evening they are made into a huge bonfire. Religious ceremonies are performed around the bonfire, with songs and dancing. The ashes of the burned-out fire are considered holy, so the people place the powder of the ashes on their foreheads. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: nailshyponychial dirt - After an archaeology dig, you will have hyponychial dirt (under the nails). More... gadzooks - An abridgment of God's hooks, "nails of the cross." More... quick - Any tender or sensitive flesh, as under the nails, around a sore or wound, or under a hoof. More... exungulate - To trim one's nails. More... | |