Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, June 13, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
buttery
| |||||||
| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
|---|---|
Interjections and PunctuationAn interjection is a word, phrase, or sound used to convey an emotion such as surprise, excitement, happiness, or anger. As interjections are capable of standing alone, they can be punctuated with a period, an exclamation point, or a question mark. How do we choose which punctuation to use? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
|---|---|
 The Birdman of Easter IslandTangata Manu, or "Birdman," was the title given to the winner of an annual ritual competition practiced by Easter Island natives up until Christian missionaries suppressed it in the 1860s. The object of the contest was the retrieval of the first sooty tern egg of the season from the cliffs of a rocky islet off the coast of the main island. The winner's clan received the right to collect that season's harvest of wild bird eggs, while the Birdman himself was afforded what privileges? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
|---|---|
 US Supreme Court Rules in Miranda v. Arizona (1966)Miranda v. Arizona was a landmark US Supreme Court decision that led to the institution of the Miranda warning, a set of rights that police officers must read to arrestees. One of the petitioners in the case, Ernesto Miranda, had been convicted of rape in 1963 based on a confession he made while in police custody—without knowing he had a right to see a lawyer. He appealed, and the Supreme Court ruled in his favor. What happened when he was retried using evidence other than his confession? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
|---|---|
 Sir Basil Rathbone (1892)Rathbone was a British actor who made his film debut in the 1920s. With his distinctive voice and gaunt appearance, he was cast as a villain in several swashbuckling movies. He won praise for his roles in Romeo and Juliet and If I Were King, but he became best known for portraying Sherlock Holmes in a series of films beginning with 1939's The Hound of the Baskervilles. Why did his English family have to flee South Africa when he was just three years old? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
|---|---|
 I desire no future that will break the ties of the past.George Eliot (1819-1880) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
|---|---|
the moral high ground— A position of moral authority or superiority that one's arguments, beliefs, ideas, etc., are claimed or purported to occupy, especially in comparison to a differing viewpoint. (Used especially in the phrase "take/claim/seize/etc. the moral high ground.") More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
|---|---|
 Feast of St. Anthony of Padua (2025)St. Anthony of Padua (1195-1231) was born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1195, and is the patron saint of Portugal. The festivities held here in his honor begin on the evening of June 12 with an impressive display of marchas, walking groups of singers and musicians, who parade along the Avenida da Liberdade. The celebration continues the next day with more processions and traditional folk dancing. Another custom of the day is for a young man to present the girl he hopes to marry with a pot of basil concealing a verse or love letter. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
|---|---|
Today's topic: robbribe - From Old French, it was originally a piece of bread given to beggars; the original sense of bribe is "extort, rob." More... clip joint - Based on clip, meaning "swindle, rob." More... pilfer - Originally, pilfering was a serious matter, synonymous with plundering, but it came to mean "stealing small things"; its source was Anglo-Norman pelfrer, "plunder, rob." More... plunder - Etymologically, it means "rob of household goods," from Dutch plunde/plunne, "household goods." More... | |