Daily Content Archive
(as of Tuesday, August 25, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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indolence
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Defining Compound-Complex SentencesCompound-complex sentences are one of the four main sentence structures. They are made up of two independent clauses and how many dependent clauses? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Mob FootballMob football, a precursor to modern soccer and rugby, emerged in Europe during the Middle Ages. It typically involved an unlimited number of players from neighboring villages. The rules were vague and few. In some versions, any means short of murder could be used to move the ball back and forth. The game likely resembled a riot, and although mob football became an annual tradition in some places, it was frequently banned. According to legend, what was used as the first football? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 WWII: The Liberation of Paris (1944)The Liberation of Paris is considered the last battle of the Normandy Campaign to free France from German occupation. In July, about a month after the Allied invasions of southern France and Normandy, Allied ground troops finally broke out of the beachheads and began a rapid advance across northern France. With help from the French resistance, Free French and US forces and liberated Paris in August. Why did the German military governor of Paris disobey Hitler's order to leave the city in ruins? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Jane Stanford (1828)Jane Stanford was the wife of a prominent American railroad builder and politician. After the death of the couple's only child in 1884, they began looking for ways to honor his memory. The next year, they founded Leland Stanford Junior University, popularly known as Stanford University. When her husband passed away in 1893, Jane stepped in to run the university and saw it through a difficult financial period, at times using her personal finances to fund the school. Who poisoned her in 1905? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit of it.W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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leather-lunged— (used before a noun) Having an extremely or inordinately loud or strong voice, as of someone with very robust lungs. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Grasmere Sports (2024)This annual event in England's Lake District began in the 1800s to encourage Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling, but it has since expanded to include other traditional Lake District sports. Fell running (a fell is a highland plateau), another traditional sport, is an all-out race to the top of the nearest mountain and back. Hound trailing, which reflects the Lake District's importance as a center for fox hunting, is done on foot with packs of hounds that run across the fells after their prey. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: madgale - A very strong wind, probably related to Old Norse galinn, "frantic, mad." More... mad as a hatter - Refers to the fact that hat makers suffered mental illness in the old days when they got mercury poisoning from treating fur. More... madding - In "far from the madding crowd," madding is a poetic survival meaning "wild, furious, raving, mad." More... rabid, rabies - Rabid and rabies come from Latin rabere, "be mad." More... | |