Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, July 12, 2025)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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incarcerate
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Vertical ListsWhile using numbers or letters can help to better organize a list, it can also result in rather long, clunky sentences. In many cases where numbers or letters are necessary, writers often prefer to structure their lists "vertically." What does that mean? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Plant ReproductionUnlike animals, plants are immobile and cannot actively seek out partners for reproduction. The first plants were aquatic and used abiotic factors, like water and wind, to carry male gametes to female reproductive structures. As plants moved from water onto land, they developed motile sperm cells that could travel via a thin film of water. Eventually, many plants evolved the pollen and seed structures common today. How do some plants attract the insect pollinators vital to their reproduction? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 King Henry VIII of England Marries Sixth and Last Wife, Catherine Parr (1543)By 1543, Henry VIII had had five marriages, which respectively ended in one divorce, one annulment, and three deaths—two by beheading. He then married Parr, his sixth and final wife. She had a good influence on the increasingly paranoid king—her third husband—and developed close friendships with his children, even acting as guardian of one of Henry's daughters after his death in 1547. Why, then, did Parr send her beloved stepdaughter, the future Queen Elizabeth I, away the next year? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Oscar Hammerstein II (1895)The grandson of an opera impresario of the same name, Hammerstein studied law before beginning the theater career that made him one of the foremost songwriters in the US. In the early 1940s, he began a prolific and successful collaboration with Richard Rodgers that resulted in plays like The King and I, The Sound of Music, and the Pulitzer Prize winners Oklahoma! and South Pacific. How did New York City honor Hammerstein following his death in August 1960? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain.Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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(one's) blood runs cold— One becomes seized by an acute and intense sensation of fear, panic, horror, or dread. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Kiribati Independence Day (2025)This island group in the middle of the Pacific Ocean was known as the Gilbert Islands until its independence from Britain on July 12, 1979. Independence Day is observed as a national holiday. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: platformlectern, podium, dais, rostrum - A lectern is the stand on which the speaker's notes are placed, the podium is the platform on which the speaker and lectern stand, a dais is a platform for several people, and a rostrum is a platform for one or more. More... pulpit - From classical Latin pulpitum, "platform, stage." More... hustings - Its early meaning of "platform" led to its sense of "any place from which campaign speeches are made" and "political campaigning." More... rostrum - Latin for "beak," it first referred to part of the Rome Forum decorated with bird beaks and used as a platform for speakers. More... | |