Daily Content Archive
(as of Thursday, July 13, 2017)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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centromere
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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SemicolonsSemicolons ( ; ) are used for two main purposes: to separate lengthy or complex items within a list and to connect independent clauses. What type of conjunction is almost always paired with a semicolon? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 The Ark of the CovenantAccording to the biblical account, the Ark of the Covenant was an ornate, gold-plated wooden chest that was built at the command of God to house the stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments. The Ark was carried by the Hebrews in the wilderness and later placed in the Temple of Jerusalem. It is believed to have been captured when Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in 586 BCE, and its subsequent fate is unknown. What are some theories about its current location? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Live Aid (1985)Live Aid was a multi-venue rock concert held simultaneously in London and Philadelphia that raised about $280 million for famine relief in Africa. The event was organized by musician Bob Geldof, who founded the supergroup Band Aid in 1984 to raise money for the same cause. About 170,000 attended the Live Aid shows, and more than 1.5 billion viewers around the world watched them on TV. Performers included David Bowie, Paul McCartney, and Queen, as well as what groups that reunited for the event? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 John Jacob Astor (1864)Astor was a financier and inventor. A man of many talents, he made a fortune in real estate, built the Astoria Hotel, invented a bicycle brake and a turbine engine, and wrote the science-fiction novel A Journey in Other Worlds about life on the planets Saturn and Jupiter. His second marriage to the much younger Madeleine Talmage Force caused a scandal, and the two took an extended honeymoon abroad to wait out the controversy. On their return trip, Astor was killed in what disaster? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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up to (one's) eyeballs (in something)— Extremely busy (with something); deeply or overly involved (in something); possessing, filled up with, or overwhelmed by an excessive amount (of something). More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Apollonian Games (2022)Apollo was an ancient Greek god, but his fame had spread to Rome where he was adopted as a healing god during a plague in the fifth century BCE. The Romans first held the Ludi Apollinares, or Apollonian Games, in 212 BCE. Originally the Games took place on July 13; they turned into an eight-day event due to the event's success. An ox with gilded horns was sacrificed to Apollo, and everyone feasted. Of the eight days, two were devoted to games and races in the Circus Maximus, a huge outdoor arena, and the other six were devoted to plays in the theaters and market fairs. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: scrapeerase - From Latin e-, "out," and radere, "scrape." More... raze, razor - Raze, from French raser, "shave close," is from Latin radere, "scrape, scratch"—also giving us razor. More... gride - To scratch, scrape, or cut with a grating sound. More... scrumble - To scrape or scratch (something) out of or from. More... | |