Daily Content Archive
(as of Friday, November 9, 2018)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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light-minded
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Subjects and PredicatesSentences must always include both a subject and a predicate. The subject is the noun (a person, place, or thing) that performs, controls, or is responsible for the action of a verb. What is the predicate? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Hanno the ElephantHanno was the pet white elephant of Pope Leo X, a member of the wealthy and powerful Medici family and one of the most extravagant Renaissance pontiffs. Hanno was given to Leo as a gift by King Manuel I of Portugal to commemorate the pope's coronation. A favorite of the papal court, Hanno was featured in processions in Rome. He contracted an illness after just two years there, however, and died in 1516. Hanno was the subject of a satirical pamphlet that helped launch the career of what author? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Kristallnacht (1938)In 1938, using the assassination of a German diplomat in Paris as a pretext, Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels urged violent reprisals against Jews. The resulting pogrom left 91 Jews dead and hundreds injured. Some 30,000 Jewish males were arrested and taken to concentration camps, and thousands of Jewish-owned businesses and synagogues were destroyed. The incident marked a major escalation in the Nazi program of Jewish persecution, foreshadowing the Holocaust. Why is it called Kristallnacht? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Hedy Lamarr (1913)Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress known primarily for her beauty and her successful film career—including her role as Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah. However, she also co-invented an early form of spread spectrum encoding—intended to make radio-guided torpedoes harder to detect or jam—in the 1940s with her neighbor, composer George Antheil. They patented the technology in 1942, but it did not come into use until later. Who introduced Lamarr to military technology? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 It isn't possible to love and to part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.E. M. Forster (1879-1970) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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good for nothing— Entirely without value; of no use whatsoever. (Hyphenated if used as a modifier before a noun.) More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Cambodia Independence Day (2023)Cambodia was a French protectorate for 90 years before it gained independence on November 9, 1953. Independence Day, which marks that event, is a national holiday. The principal celebrations are held in the capital city of Phnom Penh, beginning with a morning ceremony at Independence Monument. Later in the day, there is a gala parade held in front of the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, with colorful floats and marching bands. Shops are adorned with national flags. After dark, a large fireworks display is held near the riverbanks of the Royal Palace. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: withdrawanchorite - Its meaning of "hermit" derived from Greek ana-, "back," and chorein, "to withdraw." More... cease, cede - Cease and cede come from Latin cedere, "go away, withdraw." More... retire - From French retirer, from re-, "back" and tirer, "throw," its first sense was "withdraw to a place of safety or seclusion." More... take for the kitchen - To withdraw from a conversation or to remain silent. More... | |