Daily Content Archive
(as of Wednesday, January 3, 2018)| Word of the Day | |||
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Defining Proper AdjectivesProper adjectives, like all adjectives, modify nouns, but they are different from other adjectives because they are actually formed from proper nouns. A noun, we know, is a person, place, or thing. We can distinguish between two types of nouns: common nouns and proper nouns. What are proper nouns? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 AngkorAngkor was the site of several Khmer Empire capitals in what is now northwest Cambodia from the 9th to the 15th century CE. Home to a number of architectural masterpieces, the complex contains about 1,000 temples. At one time, the surrounding settlement was roughly the size of the modern city of Los Angeles, CA, making it the largest pre-industrial complex of its kind. Its principal temple, Angkor Wat, is the largest religious structure in the world. What is its layout believed to represent? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 NASA's Mars Polar Lander Launched (1999)The distance from Earth to Mars fluctuates between approximately 35 million mi (56 million km) and 63 million mi (101 million km). In 1999, NASA's Mars Polar Lander, on a mission to analyze soil samples, made the long journey to the Red Planet only to fail to re-establish communications following its entry into Mars's atmosphere. After the lander was declared lost, an investigation determined that it likely crashed onto the Martian surface. How long did it take the lander to reach Mars? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Lucretia Coffin Mott (1793)Mott was an American social reformer and women's rights advocate. She attended a Quaker boarding school near Poughkeepsie, New York, where she later taught, and became an official Quaker minister in 1821. She was active in the antislavery campaign and lectured widely on social reform. In 1848, she and Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the Seneca Falls Convention, which launched the US women's suffrage movement. On what issue was Mott's stance at odds with that of the mainstream women's movement? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 I cannot imagine why we should be at the expense to furnish wit for succeeding ages, when the former have made no sort of provision for ours.Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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feel like a million bucks— To feel exceptionally attractive or in very robust health. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Compitalia (2019)The Compitalia were festivals celebrated in ancient Rome in early January (between the 3rd and the 5th, according to some accounts) in honor of the lares, or deities of the household farm and family. Compita were places where roads crossed each other and were considered sacred, and people would hold sacrifices there at the end of the agricultural year. Sometimes farmers would also hang a broken plough there to indicate that a job was done. The spirit of the ancient festival survived in Plough Monday, an occasion for servants to celebrate the completion of their ploughing. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: polishedfacetious - Originally meant "having polished or urbane manners," and, along with sequoia, uses all five vowels. More... nitid - A word for "bright, shining, polished, glossy." More... polite - Actually meant "polished" or "burnished" when it came into English. More... urban, urbane - Urban refers to a city; urbane means polished and smooth, as in a person's demeanor. More... | |