Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, February 4, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Pre-DeterminersPre-determiners are words that come before another determiner to give us more information about the noun that follows. They usually come before the articles "a," "an," and "the." What are three categories of pre-determiners? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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| This Day in History | |
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 The "Flying Tailor" Dies after Failed Parachute Jump from Eiffel Tower (1912)Parachutes at the dawn of the aviation age were bulky and, inconveniently, had to be pre-opened. Among those trying to improve upon their design was French tailor Franz Reichelt. He had some success testing his designs on dummies, but he had no evidence that his parachute would work with a real person when he jumped from the Eiffel Tower before a crowd of spectators and reporters. The chute failed to open, and he plummeted to his death. How had he convinced the authorities to allow the jump? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan (1917)Yahya Khan was the president of Pakistan from 1969 to 1971. As president, he inherited a two-decade old constitutional problem of interethnic rivalry, complicated by economic grievances and the problem of transforming a virtual autocracy into a democracy. He declared martial law, but it failed to curb domestic unrest, and civil war between East and West Pakistan broke out. Pakistan's army was defeated, and Yahya Khan resigned after the establishment of what independent republic in 1971? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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| Idiom of the Day | |
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lust for power— Intense, insatiable desire to attain power and control. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 St. Agatha Festival (2025)Sant' Agata (St. Agatha) is especially revered in Catania, Sicily, where her relics are preserved in a silver casket. On February 3, 4, and 5 each year, a silver bust of St. Agatha wearing a jewel-encrusted crown is carried in procession from the cathedral to Catania's various churches. Included in the procession are the ceri, huge wooden replicas of candlesticks that are carved with episodes from the saint's martyrdom. The streets are lined with streamers and flowers, and illuminated by strings of colored lights after dark. The festival ends with a fireworks display in the piazza. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: punishexecute - Derives from Latin exsequi, "carry out, follow up; punish." More... gruelling - Comes from the verb gruel, "to exhaust, punish." More... punish - Derives from Latin punire, "punish," which came from poena, "penalty, punishment." More... penal, punitive - Penal means "relating to punishment," while punitive means "serving to punish." More... | |