Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, April 18, 2015)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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trepidation
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| Article of the Day | |
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 VoodooVoodoo refers to West African religious beliefs and practices that also have adherents in the New World. Voodoo believers are most numerous in Haiti and Benin, where they enjoy official government recognition. Voodoo contends that all of nature is controlled by spiritual forces which must be acknowledged and honored through offerings and animal sacrifice. Voodoo's incarnation in the American South is often called Louisiana Voodoo. What is a gris-gris? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 US Federal Court Rules to Release Ezra Pound from Mental Hospital (1958)An influential American poet and literary critic, Pound spent most of his life in Europe. At the end of WWII, he was arrested for treason by the US for making public broadcasts in Italy supporting anti-Semitism and Fascism. Judged insane, he was committed to a hospital in Washington, DC, until Ernest Hemingway and other friends secured his release 12 years later. In the early weeks of his incarceration, he began showing signs of a mental breakdown, possibly as a result of being locked in what? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Leopold Anthony Stokowski (1882)Stokowski was a legendary British-American conductor whose strong advocacy of new music helped to broaden American musical taste. He conducted and toured with the Philadelphia Orchestra for more than two decades, transforming it into a world-class ensemble and creating the lush "Philadelphia sound." He made three films, including Walt Disney's Fantasia, in which he also appeared. What made the "Philadelphia sound" so unique? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation.Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival (2020)More than 2,000 Japanese Americans and performers from Japan participate in this festival in San Francisco's Japantown that takes place over two consecutive weekends in April, based on the traditional Hanami festival in Japan. The climax of the festival is a three-hour parade from City Hall to the Japan Center at Post and Fillmore Streets. The parade includes singers and dancers, floats, Akita dogs, Taiko drummers, the Cherry Blossom Queen, and the traditional Taru Mikoshi, a portable shrine piled so high with casks of sake that it takes 100 people to carry it. More... | |