Daily Content Archive
(as of Monday, November 20, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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redoubtable
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Using Conjunctive AdverbsWhen we join two independent clauses with a conjunctive adverb, we can use a period and keep them as two discrete sentences. If we choose to separate the two clauses with a period, though, what must we remember to do to the conjunctive adverb? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Twenty-Mule TeamsIn 1883, miners seeking to transport the mineral borax from mines in Death Valley to the nearest railroad spur, 165 miles (266 km) away in Mojave, California, came up with a novel solution: massive wagons hauled by teams of 18 mules and two horses. When fully loaded, the caravans weighed 36.6 tons (33.2 tonnes) and stretched over 100 feet (30 m). The teams hauled more than 20 million pounds (9,000 tonnes) of borax over a six-year period. Why were two horses included on each mule team? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Whaling Ship Essex Rammed by Whale (1820)In 1819, the whaling ship Essex left Massachusetts for the South Pacific to hunt sperm whales. On November 20, 1820, in an incident that would inspire Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, the Essex was rammed multiple times by a sperm whale and sank 2,000 miles (3,700 km) off the coast of South America. The crew took three small boats to a nearby island, but many soon set out again. Conditions in the boats worsened, and the sailors had to resort to cannibalism. How many survived? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Kenesaw Mountain Landis (1866)Landis was a US federal judge and the first commissioner of professional baseball. Named for a Georgia mountain where his father had been wounded during the Civil War, he practiced law in Illinois before serving as a US district judge. In 1907, he presided over a famous case in which the Standard Oil Company was found guilty of granting unlawful freight rebates and fined $29 million, but his decision was later reversed. He was named baseball commissioner in 1920 in the aftermath of what scandal? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities.Charles Darwin (1809-1882) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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get (the hell) out of Dodge— To leave or depart from a place, especially quickly or with marked urgency. A reference to Dodge City, Kansas, the clichéd setting of cowboy and western films from the early to mid-1900s. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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.jpg) Africa Industrialization Day (2019)In 1989 the United Nations designated November 20 as Africa Industrialization Day. Observances center around mustering international support for the industrialization of Africa. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: moraliniquity - Absence of moral or spiritual values or an unjust act, it is a combination of in-, "not," and aequus, "equal, just," from Latin. More... moral, morality - Latin mor/mos, "custom," is the starting point of moral, morality, and other related words. More... | |