Daily Content Archive
(as of Wednesday, September 14, 2016)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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hegira
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Uncountable NounsNouns that cannot be divided or counted as individual elements or separate parts are called uncountable nouns (also known as mass nouns or non-count nouns). Why is it incorrect to use third-person plural pronouns with uncountable nouns? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 ExabytesAn exabyte is a unit of information or computer storage equal to one quintillion bytes—an amount roughly represented by the number 1 followed by 18 zeros. Though the term is rarely encountered in any practical context, a popular, hotly contested assertion, which often cites as support a project at the UC Berkeley School of Information, is that "all words ever spoken by human beings" can be represented by approximately 5 exabytes of data. What is meant by the related term "exaflood"? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 First Man-Made Object Reaches the Moon (1959)In the early years of space exploration, the US and USSR launched numerous probes in their race to explore outer space and the Moon in particular. The first probes were intended either to pass very close to the Moon—performing a flyby—or crash directly into it—a maneuver known as a hard landing. The Soviets were the first to succeed in the latter objective. Luna 2 impacted the lunar surface on September 14, 1959. What did Premier Nikita Khrushchev present to the US president the next day? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Jan Masaryk (1886)Masaryk, a diplomat and politician in newly independent Czechoslovakia, was named ambassador to Britain in 1925. Following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, he became foreign minister of the Czech government in exile in London. He supported cooperation with the Soviet Union and maintained his post after the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948. Two weeks later, Masaryk was found dead outside his window in the Foreign Ministry. What are the conflicting explanations for his death? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.Jane Austen (1775-1817) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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(as) silent as the grave— Totally silent, especially as produces an ominous or foreboding effect. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 National Championship Air Races and Air Show (2018)The National Championship Air Races and Air Show is a four-day nostalgia trip for air buffs, held since 1964 in Reno, Nevada, and providing some 180,000 spectators with the sight and sound of piston-engine planes flying around closed-pylon race courses. The race is the only one in the world that covers all four classes: Unlimited (vintage warbirds and homebuilt racers), AT-6 (World War II pilot trainers), Formula One (super-midget planes) and Biplane (double-winged barn stormers). Air shows of military demonstrations, parachuting exhibits, and military fly-bys are also some of the events. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: mysterybags of mystery - Slang for sausage. More... mystery - Traces back to Greek mustikos, "secret," and musterion, "secret rites"; the lesser-known meaning of mystery as "handicraft; art" is part of the phrase "mystery play." More... mystify - Derived from mystery or mystic. More... rune - An ancient alphabet letter, it is from Old English run, "secret, mystery." More... | |