Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, March 13, 2016)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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scapegrace
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| Article of the Day | |
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 Gonzo's RootsIn 1970, journalist Hunter S. Thompson was assigned to cover the Kentucky Derby for Scanlan's Monthly. With a deadline fast approaching and his story still unwritten, Thompson desperately resorted to tearing out pages of his notes and sending them to his editor. The resulting story, titled “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved,” became the first example of Gonzo journalism. Whose belief that “fiction is often the best fact” formed the basis for Thompson's subjective writing style? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 William Herschel Discovers Uranus (1781)For many years, astronomers mistakenly believed that the planet Uranus, which is sometimes visible to the naked eye, was a star. Herschel, a German-born English astronomer, originally believed that it was a comet. It soon proved to be, indeed, a verifiable planet—the first to be discovered in modern times with the aid of a telescope. The planet was only named Uranus—for the Greek personification of heaven—after the original name of Herschel's choosing proved unpopular. What was it? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Percival Lowell (1855)Lowell was an astronomer who built a private observatory in Arizona to study Mars and championed the idea that intelligent inhabitants of the Red Planet had constructed a planetwide system of irrigation there. He believed that the so-called canals of Mars were bands of cultivated vegetation dependent on this irrigation. His theory, long vigorously opposed, was finally put to rest by images taken by the US Mariner spacecrafts. Lowell did, however, correctly predict the existence of what "planet"? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have.Henry James (1843-1916) | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Omizutori Matsuri (2016)Omizutori Matsuri is marked by religious rites that have been observed for 12 centuries at the Buddhist Todaiji Temple in the city of Nara, Japan. During this period of meditative rituals, the drone of recited sutras and the sound of blowing conches echo from the temple. On March 12, young monks on the temple gallery brandish burning pine-branches, shaking off burning pieces. Spectators below try to catch the sparks, believing they have magic power against evil. On March 13, the ceremony of drawing water is observed to the accompaniment of ancient music. More... | |