Daily Content Archive
(as of Thursday, April 20, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Forming Compound NounsCompound nouns are formed by combining two or more words, with the most common combinations being noun + noun or adjective + noun. However, combinations using other parts of speech are also possible. What are they? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The Blue WhalePerhaps the largest animal to have ever lived, the blue whale can grow to be 100 ft (30.5 m) long and weigh as much as 200 tons. It eats as much as 4 tons of krill a day, and its massive mouth can hold up to 100 tons of food and water, but its throat restricts the passage of anything wider than a beach ball. Once abundant, it was nearly hunted to extinction before being placed under the protection of the international community in 1966. What is the blue whale's only natural predator? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 The Columbine High School Massacre (1999)Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were seniors at Colorado's Columbine High School when they carried out one of the deadliest school shootings in US history, killing 12 students and one teacher and injuring 21 others before taking their own lives. The incident, widely covered by the media, stirred debate about the pair's motivation for the killings, the availability of firearms, and the role of bullying, video games, and music in acts of violence. For what crime had the two been previously arrested? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Philippe Pinel (1745)After moving to Paris in 1778, Pinel, a French physician, was appointed director of the Bicêtre and Salpêtrière hospitals. His experiences there prompted him to advocate for the humane treatment of mentally ill persons—then called the insane—and for the empirical study of mental disease. He further contributed to the development of psychiatry by establishing the practice of thoroughly documenting psychiatric case histories for research. What initially inspired Pinel's interest in mental illness? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Our fear of death is like our fear that summer will be short, but when we have had our swing of pleasure, our fill of fruit, and our swelter of heat, we say we have had our day.Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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in the sticks— In the countryside, especially in a rustic or particularly unsophisticated area. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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.jpg) National Poetry Month (2024)Established by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, this month-long event centers attention on the contributions and accomplishments of American poets. It is celebrated primarily by educational institutions, libraries, bookstores, and nonprofit organizations throughout the United States and Canada, and its activities include poetry readings, poetry festivals, displays and exhibits, workshops, and other events designed to help Americans of all ages learn more about poetry and its place in our contemporary culture. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: pityalms - Goes back to Greek eleemosune, "compassion, pity," and eleos, "mercy." More... bemoan, lament - Bemoaning is motivated when pity or grief is over an event that is joined to a consequence, whereas lamenting is motivated when the grief is over the event itself. More... pity, piety - Pity and piety shared the meanings "compassion" and "dutifulness, reverence" for a while. More... ruth, ruthless, ruthful - Ruth, meaning "compassion, pity," is part of ruthless and ruthful. More... | |