Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, November 7, 2015)| Word of the Day | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
tambour
| |||||||
| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
|---|---|
Subjunctive Mood - Expressing WishesOne of the most straightforward ways of using the subjunctive mood is when we want to describe a wish for something to be different than it is or was. How do we generally construct these sentences? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
|---|---|
 The Jonesboro School MassacreOn March 24, 1998, Mitchell Johnson, age 13, and Andrew Golden, age 11, opened fire on students and teachers at their Arkansas middle school. Johnson hid in a wooded area and waited while Golden set off the school's fire alarm. Then, as the building was being evacuated, the two boys shot and killed four students and a teacher; another 10 people were wounded in the shooting. Both boys were apprehended, tried, and convicted. When were they released from custody? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
|---|---|
 Basketball Star Earvin "Magic" Johnson Announces He Has HIV (1991)Johnson had been a basketball star for more than a decade when he announced, at a press conference, that he had tested positive for HIV and would retire. He vowed to battle the disease, while confirming that neither his pregnant wife nor their unborn child was infected. As a popular athlete, Johnson helped combat the stigma of HIV, which was then predominantly associated with disproportionately affected groups such as drug addicts and homosexuals. Did Johnson ever return to basketball? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
|---|---|
 Lise Meitner (1878)An eminent Austrian physicist, Meitner fled Nazi Germany for Sweden in 1938. There, she formulated the concept of nuclear fission and proposed the term for the process. Though the Nobel Prize for the discovery went to physicist Otto Hahn, the element meitnerium was named in her honor. She was critical of scientists who remained in Germany during the Nazi era yet staunchly refused to participate in the atomic bomb research that resulted from her work. Why did Hahn once give her a diamond ring? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
|---|---|
 My definition [of a philosopher] is of a man up in a balloon, with his family and friends holding the ropes which confine him to earth and trying to haul him down.Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
|---|---|
(have) got something going (with someone)— To have or be in the midst of a romantic or sexual affair with someone. A colloquial variant of "have something going (with someone)." More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
|---|---|
 Melbourne Cup Day (2017)The only public holiday in the world dedicated to a horse race, Melbourne Cup Day has been observed in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, since the first Cup race was held there in 1867. For those who attend, it is a particularly glamorous event: the champagne flows, huge sums of money are wagered, and the women wear lavish hats while the men turn out in grey top hats and dark morning suits. A six-week festival, known as the Spring Racing Carnival, leads up to the big day and lasts well into November. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
|---|---|
Today's topic: sitstrimmer - One who sits on the fence or remains neutral about political issues. More... insessor - One who sits in or on/upon something. More... nest - From Indo-European nizdos, literally "(place where the bird) sits down." More... soot - Etymologically, something that "sits" on something else—like film settling on a surface. More... | |
| In the News | |
|---|---|
Just How Gassy Are Kangaroos Anyway?Several years ago, scientists proposed a novel solution to curb global warming: eat kangaroos.The reasoning goes like this: By replacing cattle, who tend to produce large amounts of methane – mostly by means of belching, but also out the back end – with ... More... | |