Daily Content Archive
(as of Thursday, June 4, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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two-dimensional
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Coordinating Conjunctions and PunctuationWhen a coordinating conjunction joins two independent clauses, a comma normally precedes it. When coordinating conjunctions are used to join words or phrases that are not independent clauses, what punctuation is used? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 PanspermiaPanspermia is the hypothesis that life originated elsewhere in the universe and spread to Earth, and perhaps other places, on objects like asteroids. Astrobiologists, who investigate the possibility of life in space, point out that some microorganisms can, in fact, survive in space but that the long distances between planets would make surviving an interplanetary trip quite difficult, even for extremophiles. What tiny invertebrate was sent into orbit and survived exposure to the vacuum of space? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Chinese Warlord Zhang Zuolin Is Assassinated (1928)Zhang was a Chinese warlord who became ruler of Manchuria with the tacit support of the Japanese after his militia backed them in the Russo-Japanese War in 1904–05. By the mid-1920s, his Fengtien army had gained power in Beijing, but Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Nationalists forced him out in 1928, and the Japanese began to doubt his authority over his Chinese countrymen. He was assassinated during his retreat to Shenyang when his train was bombed. Who planted the bomb, and why? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (1867)Mannerheim was a Finnish-born soldier and statesman. A career officer in the Russian imperial army from 1889 to 1917, he went on to command the anti-Bolshevik forces in the Finnish Civil War and expelled the Soviet forces, serving as regent of Finland until the new republic was declared. He served as commander-in-chief of Finnish forces in the Russo-Finnish War and was named president of Finland in 1944, after which he negotiated a peace agreement with the Soviets. Why did he resign in 1946? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Be so true to thyself as thou be not false to others.Francis Bacon (1561-1626) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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incumbent (up)on (someone)— Imposed or expected as an obligation, duty, or requirement on someone. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Tiananmen Square Anniversary (2024)Each year thousands of people in Hong Kong, China, gather on June 4 to commemorate the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre with a candlelight vigil. On that day in 1989, Chinese government tanks rolled into Beijing's Tiananman Square, killing hundreds of demonstrators calling for democratic reforms in China, and injuring 10,000 more. Since 1997, the Chinese government has discouraged the Hong Kong commemorations and pressured foreign news correspondents not to cover the yearly event. In the year 2002 about 45,000 people attended the vigil. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: televisionvidiot - An undiscriminating viewer of television or video recordings. More... gaffer - In television and film, the senior electrician. More... sixty-four dollar question, sixty-four thousand dollar question - The sixty-four dollar question on the U.S. radio quiz (1942) became the sixty-four thousand dollar question on television (1955). More... square eyes - Used to describe someone addicted to television. More... | |