Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, May 10, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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choler
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Using Quotation Marks across Multiple ParagraphsQuotation marks almost always travel as a pair, with a closing quotation mark required anytime an opening quotation mark is used. There is one specific exception to this rule, however, which occurs when quoted text spans multiple paragraphs. When this happens, we put an opening quotation mark at the beginning of each quoted paragraph. Where do we put the closing quotation mark? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 CataphractsOriginating in Central Asia, cataphracts were heavily-armored cavalry whose horses were also covered with armor made of metal scales. The name, which also refers to the armor itself, comes from the Greek word for "armored." Cataphracts were first used as elite cavalry by the Assyrians around 1000 BCE, and were adopted by numerous peoples in Eurasia, such as the Parthians, Sassanids, and Romans. Why did armored cavalry become obsolete in the 15th century? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 J. Edgar Hoover Appointed Director of FBI (1924)As FBI director from 1924 until his death in 1972, Hoover built a more efficient crime-fighting agency and established a centralized fingerprint file, a crime laboratory, and a training school for police. After World War II, he turned to the perceived threat of Communist subversion with a focus that his many critics considered obsessive. It has been verified that he orchestrated systematic harassment of political dissenters and activists, including what celebrated civil-rights leader? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 John Wilkes Booth (1838)Born into a family of famous actors, Booth made his acting debut at the age of 17. Touring widely, he soon became a wealthy celebrity, earning acclaim for his Shakespearean roles. However, he harbored deep Confederate sympathies and viewed President Abraham Lincoln as a tyrant. In April of 1865, he assassinated Lincoln at Ford's Theater, where Lincoln had previously watched him perform. Twelve days later, Booth was shot and killed by a Union soldier. Who else had Booth conspired to have killed? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.George Eliot (1819-1880) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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now (someone) has gone and done it— Someone has just done something very grave, foolish, and/or irreparable. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Golden Spike Anniversary (2025)This reenactment of the completion of America's transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Summit, Utah, has been held since 1952. Reproductions of the Central Pacific's "Jupiter" and Union Pacific's "119" meet at the site of the ceremony. Then, the Golden Spike and three other spikes are tapped into a special railroad tie; at 12:47 PM, an ordinary iron "last spike" is driven into the last tie, and the message "D-O-N-E" is sent by ham radio to the California State Railway Museum in Sacramento. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: trybeseech - First meant "search for, try to obtain." More... emulate - Means "try to equal or surpass, especially by copying." More... experience, experiment, expert - Experience, experiment and expert derive from Latin experiri, "try." More... quorum - First the genitive plural of Latin qui, "who," it originally referred to the "number of justices who need be present to try a case." More... | |