Daily Content Archive
(as of Friday, July 14, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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audacity
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Personal Pronouns - GenderModern English is largely an ungendered language. However, a personal pronoun can be inflected for gender to correspond to the gender of the person. What type of pronouns remain gender-neutral? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Transits of VenusWhen Venus passes directly between Earth and the Sun, it appears to observers as though a small disk is moving across the face of the Sun. Before the space age, such transits helped scientists calculate the distance between Earth and the Sun. Among the rarest of predictable astronomical phenomena, transits of Venus currently occur in a pattern that repeats every 243 years, with pairs of transits 8 years apart separated by gaps of 121.5 and 105.5 years. When will the next transit of Venus occur? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 The Darién Scheme: Ships Leave Scotland for Isthmus of Panama (1698)In 1695, the Scottish Parliament passed an act chartering a trading company to open trade with Africa and the Indies in the hope that this would make Scotland a world trading nation. Backed by about a quarter of the country's liquid assets, the Darién Company tried to establish a colony on the Isthmus of Panama to compete with the Dutch and Spanish, but both of its expeditions failed, nearly bankrupting Scotland in the process. The failures led to what acts of Parliament? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Ingmar Bergman (1918)Bergman was a Swedish film and stage writer, director, and producer. He achieved an impressive degree of freedom early in his career and used it to create and develop a highly individual approach. Working with many of the same actors and technicians from film to film—including actor Max von Sydow and cinematographer Sven Nykvist—Bergman filled his work with an unusual degree of unity and continuity. He won international acclaim for The Seventh Seal and what other films? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 We drink one another's health and spoil our own.Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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close the barn door after the horse has bolted— To try to prevent or rectify a problem after the damage has already been done. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Green River Rendezvous (2019)The Green River Rendezvous is a reenactment in Pinedale, Wyoming, of the days when Mountain men, Native Americans, and traders came together to transact business, trade, drink, holler, and celebrate. The first rendezvous of trappers was held on the Green River, near the present Wyoming-Utah border; the last of these colorful gatherings was held in 1840. A two-hour pageant recreating these rendezvous has been presented by the Sublette County Historical Society since 1936. Celebrations are held over three days, and other events include black-powder shoots and barbecues. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: nerveaction potential - A brief electrical signal transmitted along a nerve or muscle fiber following stimulation. More... carpal tunnel syndrome - Describes a compression of a nerve over the carpal bones (eight small bones of the wrist) through a passage (tunnel) at the front of the wrist. More... obdormition - Numbness caused by pressure on a nerve, as when a limb is "asleep." More... funny bone - A nerve, not a bone; the name is a pun on the humerus, the arm bone that gets strange tingles when it is bumped. More... | |