Daily Content Archive
(as of Friday, July 14, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Noun AdjunctsNoun adjuncts are nouns that are used to modify other nouns. What is the resulting phrase called? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Transits of VenusWhen Venus passes directly between Earth and the Sun, it appears to observers as though a small disk is moving across the face of the Sun. Before the space age, such transits helped scientists calculate the distance between Earth and the Sun. Among the rarest of predictable astronomical phenomena, transits of Venus currently occur in a pattern that repeats every 243 years, with pairs of transits 8 years apart separated by gaps of 121.5 and 105.5 years. When will the next transit of Venus occur? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 First Ascent of the Matterhorn (1865)English illustrator Edward Whymper developed an interest in mountaineering after being sent to sketch the mountain scenery of Switzerland in 1860. In 1865, after several failed attempts, he and his expedition party became the first to climb the Matterhorn—one of the last Alpine mountains to be ascended. Tragically, during the descent, four of his companions were killed in a fall. Whymper describes his experiences in Scrambles Amongst the Alps. What did he write about the accident? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Emmeline Pankhurst (1858)Pankhurst was a leading British suffragette. In 1889, she founded the Women's Franchise League, which in 1894 secured for married women the right to vote in local elections. She later advocated militancy, mainly in the form of arson, and was once arrested 12 times in a year. During World War I, she organized a rally of 30,000 women to encourage employers to let men fight while women did their jobs in England. What did her supporters hand out to every young man they encountered in civilian dress? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 We drink one another's health and spoil our own.Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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hard done-by— Mistreated or abused; cheated; dejected. Often preceded by "feel." More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Avignon Festival (2023)The month-long Festival d'Avignon was founded in 1947 by Jean Vilar, a well-known French actor and director who selected bold and innovative productions. Throughout its evolution, the Avignon Festival has not strayed from the fresh experimentation that was Vilar's hallmark, thus continuing to attract new audiences after more than 50 years of existence. The festival presents a different program each year, with about 40 performances given in 20 venues including the Popes' Palace (Palais des Papes), cloisters, and churches, and approximately 120,000 people in attendance. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: lakedemersal - Describing a fish that lives close to the floor of the sea or a lake. More... eyot, ait - A small island in a river or lake is an eyot or ait. More... benthos - The flora and fauna at the bottom of a sea or lake. More... lagoon - Derived from Latin lacuna, "pool, lake" or "hole, gap." More... | |