Daily Content Archive
(as of Thursday, December 27, 2018)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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semiannual
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Defining Action VerbsThere are many different categories of verbs that describe different kinds of actions or states of being. Action verbs describe an active process that results in an effect. What are these verbs also known as? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The Battle of the TrebbiaOne of the titanic struggles of history, the Second Punic, or Hannibalic, War, lasted from 218 to 201 BCE. Fought between the Carthaginian forces of Hannibal and the Roman Republic, the war's first major clash was the Battle of the Trebbia, named for the Trebbia River where it took place. Shortly after making his now-famous crossing of the Alps with elephants and a full baggage train, Hannibal descended into Italy and stunned the Roman forces by defeating them at Trebbia. Who won the war? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 The Hagia Sophia Is Completed (537 CE)Distinguished by its size and rising succession of domes, the Hagia Sophia is the supreme masterpiece of Byzantine architecture. First a church, later a mosque, and now a museum, it was designed under Justinian I by Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus and completed in less than six years. Its combination of a longitudinal basilica with a main building was wholly original in the sixth century, as was its use of pendentives. The Hagia Sophia stands on the site of what earlier structure? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Marlene Dietrich (1901)Dietrich was a German actress and singer. Abandoning an early ambition to be a violinist, she turned to acting and gained international attention as a femme fatale in The Blue Angel (1930). She then moved to Hollywood, where she starred in a series of films that established her glamorous and sophisticated persona. Resisting Nazi pressure to return to Germany, she became a US citizen in 1939. During WWII, she regularly entertained Allied troops, appearing before them how many times? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.George Eliot (1819-1880) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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go at (something)— To engage in or undertake something with great energy, enthusiasm, or vigor. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Dian Fossey Day (2019)American conservationist Dian Fossey (1932-1985) conducted groundbreaking research on Rwanda's mountain gorillas, a species long victimized by wide-scale poaching, and helped ensure their preservation. Fossey was murdered in her cabin at a research center in the Virunga Mountains on December 27, 1985. Ceremonies for the anniversary of her death take place in Volcanoes National Park, which contains a permanent memorial to the zoologist. Individuals typically perform traditional dances, while government officials deliver speeches and lay wreaths on her grave site. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: selectelegant - Comes from Latin eligere, "select." More... eximious - Means "choice, excellent, select," or "distinguished." More... garble - Originally meant "to sort out" or "to select in a biased way," and was applied to the selection and sorting out of individual passages from a person's writings or any separation of the good from the bad, of a selection of the worst and setting aside the better; it evolved to mean "to jumble, scramble." More... select - From Latin legere, "choose," with the prefix se-, "apart." More... | |