Daily Content Archive

Word of the Day
conniption Definition: (noun) A fit of violent emotion, such as anger or panic. Synonyms: fit, tantrum, scene Usage: When he discovered that his soup was only lukewarm, he had a conniption and stormed out of the restaurant.

Article of the Day

Sleepwalking An estimated 18 percent of the world's population is prone to sleepwalking. While most cases simply consist of sitting up in bed, there are a number of documented cases of eating, bathing, and even driving and committing murder while sleeping. The sleep disorder is more common in people with high levels of stress and anxiety and among those with a family history of sleepwalking. What tragic Shakespearean character, wracked with an overwhelming sense of guilt, is driven to sleepwalk? More...

This Day in History

Alcock and Brown Embark on First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight (1919) In 1918, the Daily Mail newspaper renewed its £10,000 prize for the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic. The next year, British aviators John Alcock and Arthur Brown claimed it after completing a treacherous 16-hour flight from Newfoundland to Ireland. Along the way, Brown had to repeatedly climb onto the wings of their biplane to remove ice, and snow filled the open cockpit. Upon reaching Ireland, they attempted to land in what they thought was a field, but it turned out to be what? More...

Today's Birthday

Margaret Bourke-White (1904) One of the original staff photographers at Time, Life, and Fortune magazines, Bourke-White was noted for her coverage of World War II. The first woman photographer to serve with US armed forces, she photographed the liberation of Buchenwald and was the only foreign correspondent in Moscow during the German invasion. Her pictures of the rural American South and her portraits of world leaders are also celebrated. What actress portrayed her in the movie Gandhi? More...

Quotation of the Day
The older one grows, the more one likes indecency. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

Idiom of the Day
great cry and little wool — A great deal of fuss, noise, fanfare, or protestation over something of little or no substance, importance, or relevance. More...

Today's Holiday

Connecticut Early Music Festival (2024) The term "early music" refers to music from the medieval, renaissance, baroque, and classical periods, up to and including Beethoven and Schubert, performed on period instruments. Since 1983, the residents of southeastern Connecticut have been able to hear early music performed on such unusual instruments as the slide trumpet, sackbut, viola da gamba, and the clavichord. The concerts are held in small rooms or churches so that the subtleties of the instruments can be heard—particularly the Noank Baptist Church in Noank and the Harkness Chapel at Connecticut College in New London. More...