Daily Content Archive

Word of the Day
felicitate Definition: (verb) To offer congratulations to. Synonyms: congratulate Usage: I felicitate you on your memory, sir.

Article of the Day

Poets Laureate Poets laureate are officially appointed by governments, often for the purpose of composing poems for events of national importance or raising awareness of literary arts. The term "laureate" comes from the Greek tradition of bestowing a laurel wreath upon heroes. Many countries have poets laureate, but the role originated in England, where Ben Jonson was most likely the first poet laureate in 1617. The post did not become a regular institution until 1670 with the appointment of what famous poet? More...

This Day in History

"BTK" Serial Killer Dennis Rader Pleads Guilty to 10 Murders (2005) Rader was a city employee, married father of two, Boy Scout leader, and an active churchgoer—and a serial killer. From 1974 to 1991, he killed 10 people in and around Wichita, Kansas. In 2004, after years of silence, he resumed taunting police and local media with letters describing the murders. In February 2005, police used information on a floppy disk he had sent them to locate and arrest him. He pled guilty that June. Five days after his arrest, he was fired from his job—for what? More...

Today's Birthday

Lafcadio Hearn (1850) Born in Greece and educated in Ireland, Hearn immigrated to the US at age 19 and lived in poverty for a time until he found employment as a journalist. He was a colorful but morbidly discontented man, admired for his highly polished tales of the macabre. In 1890, a magazine sent him to Japan, where he married a Japanese woman, took a Japanese name, and became a citizen. His subsequent books offered the West its first thoughtful view of Japanese culture. What partial disability did he have? More...

Quotation of the Day
If there is one person I do despise more than another, it is the man who does not think exactly the same on all topics as I do. Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927)

Idiom of the Day
be caught off (one's) guard — To be taken by surprise; to be caught when one is vulnerable, careless, or inattentive. More...

Today's Holiday

Tajikistan Day of National Unity (2025) On June 27, 1997, a treaty was signed between Islamic rebels and the Russian-backed Tajikistan government, bringing to an end a five-year-long civil war. The day is remembered as the Day of National Unity. On the Day of National Unity in 2007, the Tajik parliament passed a law granting amnesty to all rebels who had fought against the government, provided they had not committed murder, rape, human or drug trafficking, or terrorism. Some 2,000 prison inmates were released under the new law. The 2007 commemoration also marked the opening of 11 new buildings in the city of Dushanbe. More...