Daily Content Archive
(as of Tuesday, June 1, 2021)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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kingpin
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Defining Semi-Modal Auxiliary VerbsSemi-modal auxiliary verbs are verbs that sometimes behave like modal auxiliary verbs. Like the "proper" modal verbs, they are used with the base form of verbs (the infinitive without "to") to create a unique meaning. What is the complete list of semi-modal verbs? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman ScornedWhen Prasutagus, king of a British Celtic tribe under Roman suzerainty, died in 60 CE with no male heir, he left his estate to his daughters and Emperor Nero, hoping for protection. Instead, Nero annexed his kingdom and mistreated his family and tribesmen. Rather than accept the new order of things, the king's widow, Boudicca, raised a rebellion. Her forces allegedly massacred some 70,000 Romans and pro-Roman Britons and destroyed the Roman 9th Legion before being defeated. How did Boudicca die? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Cable News Network (CNN) Begins Broadcasting (1980)CNN, a division of the Turner Broadcasting System owned by Time Warner, is widely credited with introducing the concept of 24-hour news coverage. Today, the network reaches more than 1 billion people in more than 200 countries. Its coverage of the Gulf War and other conflicts and crises of the early 1990s, including, perhaps most famously, the "Black Hawk Down" incident in Mogadishu, Somalia, led to the coining of the term "the CNN effect." What phenomenon does the phrase describe? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 John Marshall Harlan (1833)After commanding a Union regiment in the American Civil War, Harlan served as a state attorney general before being appointed to the Supreme Court by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877. During his tenure, which lasted until his death in 1911, he became the court's outstanding liberal justice and one of the most forceful dissenters in its history. His best-known dissenting opinion came in Plessy v. Ferguson, in which the Supreme Court established what infamous doctrine? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 By what strange law of mind is it that an idea long overlooked, and trodden under foot as a useless stone, suddenly sparkles out in new light, as a discovered diamond?Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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be still in the game— To remain a contender for success despite setbacks or difficulties. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Samoa Independence Day (2024)Samoa (called Western Samoa until 1997) gained independence from New Zealand on January 1, 1962. Because the rainy season in Samoa comes in January, however, celebrations are held in June on the first day of the month. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: highesttop note - The highest in a piece of music or in a singer's vocal range. More... paramount, tantamount - Paramount means "primary, top," and tantamount means "equivalent to, same as"; paramount first meant "highest in jurisdiction." More... prime - Unusual since it can have virtually opposite meanings: "preliminary, basic" or "lowest"—as well as "finest" and "highest." More... supreme - Ultimately from Latin supra, "above," which begat supremus, "highest." More... | |