Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, December 28, 2019)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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precognition
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Collective Nouns and Plural NounsCollective nouns are very similar to plural nouns. Plural nouns are nouns that refer to multiple people, places, or things, and they primarily (but not always) have what endings? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Operation Ivory CoastOperation Ivory Coast was a failed rescue mission conducted by US special forces during the Vietnam War. The goal of the mission was to rescue 61 American prisoners of war thought to be held at a prison camp in North Vietnam. After months of planning and training, an elite team of soldiers helicoptered in and stormed the compound in the early morning of November 21, 1970. The raid was executed successfully, with only a few injuries, but the mission was ultimately deemed a failure. Why? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Lumière Brothers' First Film Screening for a Paying Public Audience (1895)In 1882, French inventor Louis Lumière developed a method of making photographic plates. By 1894, he and his brother August were producing 15 million plates a year. They worked on improving Edison's kinetoscope, and, in 1895, patented their combination movie camera and projector, the Cinématographe. Their 46-second film La Sortie des ouvriers de l'usine Lumière is considered the first motion picture and was one of 10 included in their first public film screening. What is its subject? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 John von Neumann (1903)Neumann was a Hungarian-born American mathematician. He emigrated to the US in 1930 to teach at Princeton University and was among the original faculty of its Institute for Advanced Study. He solved one of David Hilbert's 23 theoretical problems, collaborated on an algebraic ring with profound applications in quantum physics, and helped develop the atomic bomb. He later made major contributions to the development of computers. What branch of applied mathematics did he help found? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Religious discord has lost her sting; the cumbrous weapons of theological warfare are antiquated; the field of politics supplies the alchemists of our times with materials of more fatal explosion, and the butchers of mankind no longer travel to another world for instruments of cruelty and destruction.John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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long-run— (used before a noun) Involving, maturing after, or lasting for a long period of time. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Russian Winter Festival Moscow (2024)The Russian Winter Festival is a festival of arts and a time of holiday partying largely in Moscow, Russia, and somewhat less grandly in other cities of the former Soviet Union. In Moscow, there are circuses, performances of Russian fables for children, and other special theatrical presentations as well as traditional outdoor parties with troika (sled) rides, folk games, and dancing around fir trees. On New Year's Eve, children wait for gifts from "Grandfather Frost"—who wears a red robe and black boots and has a white beard—and his helper, Snow Girl. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: plasticaglet - The plastic or metal covering on the end of a shoelace (formerly called the point) that makes it easier to thread through the eyelet holes. More... plastic - From Greek plastos, "to form, mold." More... plastic surgery - Dates to 1837; "plastic" is used in the sense of "molding, shaping." More... velo binding - A type of document fastener using a narrow strip of plastic on the front and back and attached with thin plastic pegs through the pages; also called velobind. More... | |