Daily Content Archive
(as of Wednesday, July 10, 2019)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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squander
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Acronyms and InitialismsAcronyms and initialisms are abbreviations of multiple words using just their initial letters. How are they distinguished from each other? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Pliny's Natural HistoryPliny the Elder was a Roman scholar famous for his Historia Naturalis—Natural History—an encyclopedia published in 77 CE. His one surviving work, it is divided into 37 books that survey all the known sciences of the day, notably geography, anthropology, zoology, mineralogy, and botany. Although the work was the European authority on scientific matters up to the Middle Ages, it is of uneven accuracy. Pliny was in the process of revising the work when he died observing what disaster? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Rubens's Massacre of the Innocents Sells for £49.5 million (2002)Misattributed to an assistant of Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens until 2002, when an expert from Sotheby's auction house identified it as the work of the master himself, Massacre of the Innocents is an early 17th-century painting depicting Herod's slaughter of the infants of Bethlehem. One of two paintings Rubens made of the Biblical scene, it fetched £49.5 million ($76 million) at auction and is one of the priciest paintings ever sold. Its style is reminiscent of which Italian painter? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Nikola Tesla (1856)Tesla was an inventor and engineer known for his revolutionary contributions to the fields of electricity and magnetism. His inventions made possible the production of alternating-current electric power, and his Tesla coil is still used in radio technology. In 1912, he refused a Nobel Prize because he felt his co-recipient, Thomas Edison, was undeserving of the honor. He spent his final years caring for pigeons. What strange habits earned him a reputation as the quintessential "mad scientist"? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Love is invisible, and comes in and goes out as he likes, without anyone calling him to account for what he does.Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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one after another— Consecutively and in quick succession, with one person or thing rapidly following another in order (and usually indicating a large amount altogether). (Often formulated as "one (noun) after another.") More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Cheltenham International Festival of Music (2022)Established in 1945 to give first performances of works by British composers, the two-week Cheltenham International Festival of Music has since expanded its scope considerably. Its musical repertoire now includes both British and foreign composers offering operas as well as symphonic, chamber, and choral music. Special master classes are also offered each year on such subjects as string quartets, piano trios, and brass instruments. Recitals and chamber music concerts are held in the Pittville Pump Room, Cheltenham Spa's most important Regency structure. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: tiredlanguescent - If you are becoming tired, you are languescent. More... irk - Originally meant "grow tired"; a possible source is Old Norse yrkja, "work." More... lassate - Means tired or weary. More... late - Comes from Indo-European lad-, "slow, weary," which begat Latin lassus, "tired," before English late, meaning "slow." More... | |