Daily Content Archive
(as of Friday, September 23, 2022)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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decrepitude
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Adverbs of DegreeAdverbs of degree are used to indicate the intensity, degree, or extent of the verb, adjective, or adverb they are modifying. What are grading adverbs? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Quilombo dos PalmaresIn colonial Brazil, a community of fugitive slaves was known as a quilombo. Located in inaccessible areas, quilombos usually consisted of fewer than 100 people. But one, Palmares, grew into an autonomous republic that eventually had 20,000 inhabitants. Ironically, this community founded by runaway slaves owed much of its prosperity to slave labor, as inhabitants abducted slaves that were then kept in bondage. How many attacks did the community successfully repel before being destroyed in 1694? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 El Grito de Lares: The Lares Uprising (1868)The Lares rebellion of 1868 was the most notable uprising in a series of failed Puerto Rican rebellions against Spanish rule that began in the 1820s. Best known as El Grito de Lares, or The Cry of Lares, the revolt took place in the town of Lares, where rebels briefly declared independence. Though the rebellion was brutally and swiftly suppressed, Lares has come to be known as the birthplace of Puerto Rican nationalism. Who was declared the republic's first president during the rebellion? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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.jpg) Typhoid Mary (1869)Mary Mallon was the first person in the US to be identified as a healthy carrier of typhoid fever. In 1904, a typhoid epidemic was traced to homes where she had been a cook. She fled but was located by authorities and forcibly quarantined for several years. In 1910, she was released on the condition that she not take another food-handling job. Discovered cooking again in 1914, she was quarantined for life. Though she herself never had the disease, she infected about 50 people. How many died? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Familiarity breeds contempt. How accurate that is. The reason we hold truth in such respect is because we have so little opportunity to get familiar with it.Mark Twain (1835-1910) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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have (something) in (one's) hands— To have under one's control, charge, or care; to have responsibility for something. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Aizu Byakko Matsuri (2023)Aizu was once the sturdiest castle in northeast Japan, but it was destroyed in a battle between the Emperor's forces and the Shogun's forces in 1868. The Byakkotai, or White Tiger Band, young men who vowed to lay down their lives in defense of the castle, saw what they thought was fire rising from the walls. Thinking it had fallen into enemy hands, they killed themselves. Each September to commemorate their courage, there is a procession of 500 warriors and a lantern procession through Aizu Wakamatsu, where the original members of the White Tiger Band are buried. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: staffbaguette - Means "little rod" and is derived from Latin baculum, "staff, stick." More... dough - As in money, it almost certainly came from bread (another slang term for it), because bread is the staff of life. More... staff - From Germanic stabaz, "stick"; its sense as "employees" is probably an allusion to the carrying of a staff of office by a person in charge. More... miter, mitre, crosier - The tall, pointy hat of a bishop or abbot is the miter/mitre—from Greek mitra, "headdress"; a crosier is a bishop's staff. More... | |