Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, September 23, 2018)| Word of the Day | |||
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Non-Restrictive Relative ClausesNon-restrictive relative clauses give us additional information about a noun that has already been identified, but this information is not essential for the sentence to make sense. What two words cannot be used to introduce non-restrictive clauses? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 EuripidesEuripides was a Greek playwright recognized, along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, as one of Athens's three great tragic dramatists. Unlike his contemporaries, who concerned themselves with grandiose themes and deities, Euripides wrote about ordinary people and social issues. He began competing in the dramatic festival of Dionysus in 455 BCE and won his first victory in 441 BCE. Of his 92 plays, only about 19 survive. Many of his plays are resolved by a deus ex machina, which is what? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Merchant Royal Sinks, Taking Cargo of Gold and Silver with Her (1641)A holy grail of marine salvage, the wreck of the Merchant Royal, one of the most valuable of all time, has eluded treasure hunters for centuries. When the leaky, 17th-century English merchant ship sank in rough weather in the vicinity of the Isles of Scilly and southwestern England, she took with her a fabled cargo of gold, silver, and precious gems worth over a billion dollars today. Among the riches lost in the wreck was the money to pay whom? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 John Coltrane (1926)Coltrane was an influential American jazz saxophonist and composer. He worked with numerous big bands before emerging in the 1950s as a major stylist while playing with Miles Davis. His playing exhibited a dazzling technical brilliance as well as ardent emotion. Coltrane made a number of influential recordings, among them the 1960s classics My Favorite Things and A Love Supreme. He was deeply spiritual and interested in all religions. What church made him a saint after his death? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Pride is one of the seven deadly sins; but it cannot be the pride of a mother in her children, for that is a compound of two cardinal virtues—faith and hope.Charles Dickens (1812-1870) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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snow on the mountain— Silver, grey, or white hair on one's head, as due to aging. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Aizu Byakko Matsuri (2025)Aizu was once the sturdiest castle in northeast Japan, but it was destroyed in a battle between the Emperor's forces and the Shogun's forces in 1868. The Byakkotai, or White Tiger Band, young men who vowed to lay down their lives in defense of the castle, saw what they thought was fire rising from the walls. Thinking it had fallen into enemy hands, they killed themselves. Each September to commemorate their courage, there is a procession of 500 warriors and a lantern procession through Aizu Wakamatsu, where the original members of the White Tiger Band are buried. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: tapfaucet - Probably comes from French fausset, meaning "bore, tap." More... tattoo - In the military sense—of a signal summoning soldiers to their quarters at night—it was originally written tap-too, from a Dutch word taptoe, meaning "close the tap" (of a cask), which was told to soldiers when they were expected to return to their quarters. More... tick, tickle - Tick, as in "sound of a clock," "mark of correctness," originally meant "light touch, tap," and its modern senses are recent developments; tickle is probably a derivative of this version of tick. More... tit for tat - Probably borrowed from Dutch tip for tap, "blow for blow." More... | |