Daily Content Archive
(as of Thursday, May 7, 2015)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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ultramarine
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Factitive Verbs vs. Causative VerbsCausative verbs tie a subject to other parts of the sentence that reveal more about the subject. In this way, they serve a similar function to factitive verbs. How do the two types of verbs differ? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 ChlorophyllChlorophyll is a green pigment that gives most plants their color and enables them to carry out photosynthesis, the process through which plants get energy from light. Chlorophyll absorbs light in the red and blue-violet portions of the visible spectrum; the green portion is not absorbed and, reflected, gives chlorophyll its characteristic green color. Only one animal has been found to use the chlorophyll it has eaten to perform photosynthesis for itself. What is it? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Suicidal Passenger Brings Down Pacific Air Lines Flight 773 (1964)In early May, Francisco Gonzales—a disturbed former member of the Philippine Olympic sailing team—bought a gun and life insurance and began talking about killing himself. He followed through on his threat during a flight to San Francisco, but he did more than just end his own life; he took the lives of all 44 people on board by shooting both the pilot and co-pilot, causing the plane to crash. What cockpit security regulation—adopted before the flight—only went into effect after the tragic crash? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Rabindranath Tagore (1861)Tagore was a Bengali poet, philosopher, artist, writer, and composer whose works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His writings, which often exhibit rhythmic lyricism, colloquial language, and philosophical contemplation, received worldwide acclaim. He became Asia's first Nobel laureate when he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Knighted by the British government in 1915, Tagore resigned the honor four years later in protest of what? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 What's the use of making mysteries? It only makes people want to nose 'em out.Edith Wharton (1862-1937) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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a necktie party— An execution by hanging or lynching carried out by a mob of people outside the process of the law. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Birthday of Tagore (2018)This date commemorates the birth of Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), the great poet, philosopher, social reformer, dramatist, and musician of Calcutta, India. In 1913, he was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for literature. Tagore's birthday is celebrated with a festival of his poetry, plays, music, and dance dramas. There are discussions at schools and universities of his ideas on education and philosophy, and screenings of films based on Tagore's short stories and novels made by filmmaker and Calcutta native, Satyajit Ray. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: soldierbombardier - First denoted a soldier in charge of a bombard, an early form of cannon. More... functional shift - The process by which words change parts of speech without the addition of a prefix or suffix, as in soldier on, the verb, being created from soldier, the noun. More... guerrilla, gorilla - Guerrilla is from a Spanish diminutive of guerra, "war," and refers to a soldier of an independent armed resistance force; gorilla is the ape. More... | |
| In the News | |
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Massive Dead Zones Threaten Atlantic Sea LifeDead zones in the Atlantic—so called because their lack of oxygen can't sustain life—have been seen for the first time by scientists. These areas of extremely low oxygen occurred in the tropical North Atlantic. The levels of oxygen were the lowest ever ... More... | |