Daily Content Archive
(as of Wednesday, December 7, 2016)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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spline
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Conjunctive AdverbsConjunctive adverbs (also called linking adverbs or connecting adverbs) are a specific type of conjunction specifically used to connect two independent clauses. What punctuation mark is traditionally used when we join two independent clauses with a conjunctive adverb? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 HashshashinThe historical referents of the term "assassin," the Hashshashin were a secret society of Ismaili Shia Muslims who specialized in politically motivated killings of Crusaders and Muslim rulers. Much of the lore surrounding the feared sect, which originated in Persia and was active from 1090 to 1272, stems from Marco Polo's likely fictional account of his visit to the city of Alamut in 1273. What drug is believed to be the root of the term "Hashshashin," and what was its connection to the sect? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Recording Industry Association of American Sues Napster (1999)Shortly after Napster was founded in 1999, the popular file-sharing service was hit with a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The trial gave Napster so much publicity that usage of the service increased, despite RIAA's claim that Napster users were breaking the law by downloading copyrighted music for free. Though it was forced by an injunction to shut down its network in July 2001, Napster did not fold. What happened to it? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Willa Sibert Cather (1873)Cather moved with her family to Nebraska at the age of nine, and though she later settled in New York, her prairie upbringing deeply influenced her writing. Her novels, which include O Pioneers!, Death Comes for the Archbishop, and My Ántonia, celebrate the spirit and courage of pioneer life. Her works include several independent heroines of the frontier and have been studied from a feminist perspective. Cather occasionally wore men's clothing and went by what nickname? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf is better than a whole loaf.Gilbert Chesterton (1874-1936) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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the kiss of life— Artificial respiration, that is, the blowing into the mouth of a person who has stopped breathing so as to force air in and out of his or her lungs. Primarily heard in UK, Australia. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Pearl Harbor Day (2017)Pearl Harbor Day marks the anniversary of the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor in 1941, bringing the United States into World War II and widening the European war to the Pacific. Many states proclaim a Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, and each year services are held on December 7 at the Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor. The marble memorial, built over the sunken USS Arizona and dedicated in 1962, was designed by architect Alfred Preis, a resident of Honolulu who was an Austrian citizen in 1941 and was interned as an enemy alien. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: saddleapishamore - A blanket used under a saddle. More... col - A saddle between two mountain peaks, from Latin collum, "neck." More... caparison - A cloth or covering spread over the saddle or harness of a horse, often ornamented; this word can also mean "housings, trappings." More... larigos - The rings on a saddle through which the straps pass. More... | |
| In the News | |
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Pluto Is Hiding a Gigantic Liquid Ocean You Would Never, Ever Want to Swim InPluto is hiding a very big secret some 3 billion miles away from Earth: a vast ocean of liquid water. If you could suck all of the liquid from below the dwarf planet's icy shell, it might amount to a sphere up to 780 miles wide, or about 75% of all of ... More... | |