Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, March 14, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
confound
| |||||||
| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
|---|---|
Forming Sentences with Dependent ClausesA dependent clause relies on the information from an independent clause to form a complete, logical thought. What usually indicates a dependent clause? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
|---|---|
 The Estates-General of 1789The Estates-General was a legislative assembly made up of the three classes of French subjects—clergy, nobility, and commoners. King Louis XVI summoned them in 1789 to solve the financial crisis facing his government. However, rather than pass his proposed fiscal reforms, they began airing their many grievances, chiefly their frustrations with the voting process. In an act that kindled the French Revolution, members of the third estate then formed an assembly of their own and vowed to do what? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
|---|---|
 Nazis "Liquidate" Poland's Kraków Ghetto (1943)In 1941, the Nazis ordered all remaining Jews in the Polish city of Kraków—15,000 of an original 68,000—to move into a walled-off district of the city, thereafter known as the Kraków ghetto. The systematic deportation of these Jews to concentration camps began in May 1942. On March 13 and 14, 1943, the deportation of 8,000 Jews to a nearby camp and the killing of 2,000 in the streets completed the Nazi's "liquidation" of the ghetto. What non-Jewish ghetto resident saved countless Jewish lives? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
|---|---|
 Doris Eaton Travis (1904)Travis was a Broadway and film performer who began her career at the age of 14 by joining the Ziegfeld Follies, the long-running annual Broadway revue famous for its extraordinarily elaborate theatrical productions and chorus of beautiful women, known as the Ziegfeld Girls after the show's producer. Travis, who became one of the stars of the revue, lived to the age of 106 and was the last surviving Ziegfeld Girl. What did she do in the 74 years after her show-business career ended? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
|---|---|
 Why is it that when you awake to the world of realities you nearly always feel, sometimes very vividly, that the vanished dream has carried with it some enigma which you have failed to solve?Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
|---|---|
be as good as gone— To be very nearly, inevitably, or for all intents and purposes lost, departed, defunct, or deceased. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
|---|---|
 Mamuralia (2024)According to one Roman myth, Mamurius was a smith who was run out of the city because the shields he made for the soldiers failed to protect them when they were substituted for the sacred shield that had fallen from heaven. Another explanation is that Mamurius represented the old year, which had to be driven away on the day preceding the first full moon of the new Roman year. In any case, the rite that took place on March 14 involved leading a man wearing only animal skins through the streets of Rome. He was pursued and beaten with long white rods until he was driven out of the city. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
|---|---|
Today's topic: specialartificial language - An invented language, as opposed to a hereditary one, intended for a special use, as in international communication, a secret society, or computer programming. More... auspicious, propitious - Auspicious implies success in the future, while propitious means favorable conditions are present; auspicious means promising or of good omen—not just special or memorable. More... niche product - A product that is made and marketed for use in a small and specialized but profitable market. More... | |