Daily Content Archive
(as of Tuesday, March 16, 2021)| Word of the Day | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
urbane
| |||||||
| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
|---|---|
Defining the PeriodThe period (also known as a full stop, especially in British English) is a punctuation mark ( . ) primarily used to indicate the end of a sentence. It appears as a single dot on the bottom line of the text, and it comes immediately after what in a sentence? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
|---|---|
 ColchisColchis was an ancient country situated on the eastern shore of the Black Sea in what is now the Republic of Georgia. In Greek legend, it was the home of Medea and the destination of Jason and the Argonauts. Though Greek trading posts were established there with the support of the native Colchians—whose ethnic composition is unclear—the land remained independent for hundreds of years. It was situated just outside of Alexander the Great's control. Who finally conquered Colchis in 100 BCE? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
|---|---|
 Caligula Becomes Emperor of Rome (37 CE)When Caligula became the Roman emperor in 37 CE, replacing the hated Tiberius, the public welcomed his reign, and for a time it was uneventful. Seven months later, he fell severely ill, and when he recovered, he was a changed man. Suddenly, his reign was marked by financially ruinous extravagance, unmatched cruelty, and rampant executions, even of his former supporters. He was assassinated within a few years. What may have caused the mental instability Caligula displayed after his illness? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
|---|---|
 Caroline Lucretia Herschel (1750)Caroline Herschel was a British astronomer. At the age of 10, she contracted typhus, which permanently stunted her growth—but not her ambition. Her family assumed that she would never marry because of her height and trained her to be a household servant. But when her brother, Sir William Herschel, took up astronomy and accepted the position of King's Astronomer, she joined him as his assistant and assumed the laborious task of cataloguing thousands of stars and nebulae. What did she discover? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
|---|---|
 There is nothing so strange and so unbelievable that it has not been said by one philosopher or another.Rene Descartes (1596-1650) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
|---|---|
marry (someone) for (his or her) money— To marry someone solely or primarily to have access to their personal wealth. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
|---|---|
 St. Urho's Day (2021)St. Urho, whose name in Finnish means "hero," is credited with banishing a plague of grasshoppers that was threatening Finland's grape arbors. His legend in the United States was popularized in the 1950s; after being celebrated as a "joke holiday" for several years in the Menahga-Sebeka area, the idea spread to other states with large Finnish populations. The actual celebrations include wearing St. Urho's official colors—Nile Green and Royal Purple—drinking grape juice, and chanting St. Urho's famous words, "Grasshopper, grasshopper, go away," in Finnish. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
|---|---|
Today's topic: newsgazette - A gazzetta, a Venetian coin of little value, gave rise to the phrase gazzetta de la novita, "halfpennyworth of news," which eventually gave us gazette. More... silly season - Any slow news period characterized by trivial news or no news. More... tidings - Probably comes from Old Norse tithindi, "news of events." More... report - To report something is etymologically to "carry it back," from Latin reportare; the metaphorical sense of "bringing back news" also developed in Latin. More... | |