Daily Content Archive
(as of Tuesday, October 26, 2021)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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foible
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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ParenthesesParentheses are used to separate information that is not necessary to the structure or meaning of the surrounding text. When can parentheses be replaced by em dashes? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Manhattan's Five PointsFive Points was a notorious New York City slum centered on a five-cornered intersection in what is now Foley Square. The neighborhood, home to the infamous "gangs of New York," was created in the early 1800s after Collect Pond was filled, creating a swamp and prompting its more affluent inhabitants to move amid declining conditions. Heavily populated by free African Americans and Irish immigrants, Five Points was an early example of racial integration in the US. What form of dance emerged there? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Pony Express Announces Its Closure (1861)At its inception in 1860, the Pony Express operated between St. Joseph, Missouri—the western end of a telegraph line—and Sacramento, California. Changing horses at stations roughly 10–15 miles (16–24 km) apart, riders carried the mail a distance of 1,800 miles (2,900 km) in about eight days, often traveling through hostile Native American territory. Though it provided an important mail link with the West, it was a financial failure, and the Pony Express announced its closure two days after what? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Charles William Post (1854)Post was an American breakfast cereal manufacturer. In the 1880s, while being treated by John H. Kellogg at a health sanitarium, he developed an interest in producing healthful foods like those served by Kellogg. In 1891, he established La Vita Inn, an institute for healing by mental suggestion. After experimenting with breakfast foods, he invented Postum, a coffee substitute after which he named his company, Postum Cereal Co., the precursor to General Foods Corp. What cereals did Post invent? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Nothing in the world is harder than speaking the truth and nothing easier than flattery.Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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get this show on the road— To promptly begin or get something started. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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Angam Day (2023)Nauru is an island in the Pacific, about 2,200 miles northeast of Sydney, Australia, and 2,400 miles southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii. Over the past 100 years, the existence of Nauruans has been threatened a number of times—by tribal disputes in the 1870s and by an influenza epidemic in 1919. During World War II, two-thirds of the population were deported by the Japanese to the Caroline Islands to build airstrips. Angam ("hope") Day on October 26 commemorates the various occasions when the Nauruan population has reached 1,500, considered the minimum number necessary for survival. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: robbribe - From Old French, it was originally a piece of bread given to beggars; the original sense of bribe is "extort, rob." More... clip joint - Based on clip, meaning "swindle, rob." More... pilfer - Originally, pilfering was a serious matter, synonymous with plundering, but it came to mean "stealing small things"; its source was Anglo-Norman pelfrer, "plunder, rob." More... plunder - Etymologically, it means "rob of household goods," from Dutch plunde/plunne, "household goods." More... | |