Daily Content Archive
(as of Friday, January 17, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
arcadian
| |||||||
| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
|---|---|
ObjectsGrammatical objects are nouns or pronouns that complete the meaning of verbs and prepositions. What is an indirect object? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
|---|---|
 The Curse of the NinthThe Curse of the Ninth is the superstition that a composer will die after writing a ninth symphony. Belief in the curse arose after Beethoven, Dvorák, and Schubert—among others—all died after composing their ninth symphonies. Mahler, perhaps the first prominent composer to fear the curse, attempted to elude it by naming his ninth symphony "The Song of the Earth," but he died after writing "Symphony No. 9"—which was technically his 10th. Who are the other supposed victims of the curse? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
|---|---|
 US Supreme Court Declares Home VCRs Legal (1984)After Sony introduced the Betamax home video tape recorder in the mid-1970s, Universal Studios sued, alleging that Betamax facilitated copyright infringement by allowing users to make copies of television programs. After an eight-year legal battle, the US Supreme Court ruled that using the new technology to "time-shift" one's television viewing constituted fair use. By then, Betamax had been eclipsed by the VHS format. What later case concerned the "space-shifting" of media? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
|---|---|
 Anne Brontë (1820)Though often overshadowed by her more famous sisters, Charlotte and Emily, Anne Brontë was a novelist and poet in her own right. She possessed a style distinct from the romanticism of her sisters, and her works—which include Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall—have been praised for their realism and moral force. Like her five older siblings, Anne died of tuberculosis at a fairly young age. After she died, who prevented her controversial second novel from being reprinted? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
|---|---|
 She might hate me, and revile me, and heap indignity after indignity upon me, as she already had, until I should have hated her; but the pitiful fact remained that I loved her.Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
|---|---|
window-shopping— The act of visiting stores, or looking in their windows, to see what is available without buying anything. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
|---|---|
 Benjamin Franklin's Birthday (2025)Born in Boston on this day in 1706, Benjamin Franklin helped edit, and was a signer of, the Declaration of Independence. He also helped to frame the Constitution. When he died in 1790 in Philadelphia, he was given the most impressive funeral that city had ever seen: 20,000 people attended. In Philadelphia, the Franklin Institute Science Museum holds a two-day "birthday bash" that often involves people dressing as Franklin. The celebration takes place on the weekend preceding Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, which is the Monday after January 15. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
|---|---|
Today's topic: highesttop note - The highest in a piece of music or in a singer's vocal range. More... paramount, tantamount - Paramount means "primary, top," and tantamount means "equivalent to, same as"; paramount first meant "highest in jurisdiction." More... prime - Unusual since it can have virtually opposite meanings: "preliminary, basic" or "lowest"—as well as "finest" and "highest." More... supreme - Ultimately from Latin supra, "above," which begat supremus, "highest." More... | |