Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, October 1, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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fretful
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Defining Compound-Complex SentencesCompound-complex sentences are one of the four main sentence structures. They are made up of two independent clauses and how many dependent clauses? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The First Fatality in the Age of FlightUS Army First Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge was the first person killed in a powered airplane. The accident that caused his death occurred during a demonstration of the Wright Flyer for the US Army in September 1908. After a few successful circuits around Virginia's Fort Myer, the craft's right propeller broke, causing it to nose-dive into the ground. Selfridge, a passenger on the flight, sustained major head injuries and died that night. What happened to the pilot, Orville Wright? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Siemens & Halske Telegraph Construction Company Is Founded (1847)Siemens AG is Europe's largest engineering conglomerate. It was originally founded to build telegraph installations, but under Werner Siemens and his three brothers, it expanded to produce cables, telephones, electric power, and electric lighting. The company built the first long-distance telegraph line in Europe, followed by the monumental Indo-European telegraph line that stretched from Calcutta, India, to London, England. What scandal tainted the company's reputation in the 1940s? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Bonnie Parker (1910)Bonnie Parker was the female half of the notorious Depression-era criminal duo "Bonnie and Clyde." She met Clyde Barrow in 1930 and soon became his lover as well as his partner in crime. In 1932, the pair began a 21-month crime spree—which ended when they were killed in a police ambush—that involved robberies, shootouts, and murders. Their activities were widely publicized, and they soon became America's most famous and romanticized outlaws. How did Bonnie and Clyde allegedly meet? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Fear is sharp-sighted, and can see things underground, and much more in the skies.Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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scare (someone) silly— To shock or frighten someone very suddenly and/or severely. (Hyperbolically alludes to frightening someone so severely as to cause him or her to lose his or her mind.) More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 International Day of Older Persons (2018)The United Nations General Assembly decided to set aside October 1 as International Day for the Elderly in 1990 (later designated as the International Day of Older Persons). By designating a day when governments are supposed to focus on what they can do to provide for the elderly, the U.N. hopes not only to forestall problems related to the aging of the population but to focus attention on the promise that a maturing population holds for social undertakings. The United Nations also set aside the year 1999 as the International Year of Older Persons. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: prizeathlete - Derived from Greek athlon, "prize" or "contest"—which also gives us triathlon (etc.); it should be pronounced ATH-leet—with two syllables, not three. More... cakewalk - Started out as a competitive dance whose winner got a cake as a prize. More... premium - First meant "prize, reward." More... taking the cake - Once meant literally winning the prize of a cake, awarded in a cakewalk. More... | |
| In the News | |
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Shocking 'blue hole' discovered in the Great Barrier ReefThe Great Barrier Reef has just gotten even cooler thanks to a fresh discovery. Marine biologist Johnny Gaskell discovered an incredible “Blue Hole” in the heart of the Great Barrier Reef when searching on Google Maps. “A blue hole is an underwater sinkhole formed ... More... | |