Daily Content Archive
(as of Thursday, December 9, 2021)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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sycophant
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Using Viewpoint Adverbs to Specify an Aspect of SomethingWe use specific viewpoint adverbs to delimit, or specify, what part or aspect of something we are talking about. What are these adverbs often called? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Joseph Jagger: The Man Who Broke the BankBefore Mick Jagger strutted with the Stones, fellow Brit Joseph Jagger brought fame to the surname in 1873 when he won two million francs at the Beaux-Arts Casino in Monte Carlo, Monaco. Jagger began his scheme by hiring six clerks to record the outcomes of six of the casino's roulette wheels. They discovered that nine numbers came up more frequently than the others on one of the wheels. How did the casino respond when Jagger put his plan into action and began racking up winnings? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 John Birch Society Founded (1958)The John Birch Society was founded in 1958 by Robert H. Welch, Jr., a retired candymaker, to combat communism and promote ultraconservative causes in the US. It was named for an American missionary and army intelligence officer killed by Chinese communists in 1945, considered by the society the first hero of the Cold War. Its membership reached more than 70,000 in the 1960s. Since then, it has promoted many objectives, including pressing for the US to withdraw from what organization? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 William Whiston (1667)Whiston was an English clergyman and mathematician. He won favor through his New Theory of the Earth and in 1701 was made deputy to Sir Isaac Newton, whom he succeeded as a professor of mathematics at Cambridge. Well known as a preacher, Whiston aroused opposition by proclaiming his opinions about early Christianity, and in 1710 he was dismissed from the university for heresy. In 1736, he caused widespread panic when he predicted that what would bring the world to its end within the year? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Pride is one of the seven deadly sins; but it cannot be the pride of a mother in her children, for that is a compound of two cardinal virtues—faith and hope.Charles Dickens (1812-1870) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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living impaired— A jocular, pseudo-politically correct term for being dead. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Tanzania Independence Day (2022)Tanzania Independence Day is a celebration of the independence—from the British in 1961—of Tanganyika, which merged with Zanzibar in 1964 to become Tanzania. The day is a national holiday celebrated with parades, youth leagues marching before the president at the stadium in Dar es Salaam, school games, cultural dances, and aerobatics by the air force. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: summitcolophon - A crowning or finishing touch, from Greek kolophon, "summit" or "finishing stroke." More... knoll - The summit or rounded top of a mountain or hill, it seems to derive from Old Teutonic knoo-lo, meaning "ball, clod, knot." More... acrobat - Derived from Greek akrobatos, "walking on tiptoe," from Greek akron, "summit," and baino, "walk." More... | |