Daily Content Archive

(as of Tuesday, February 8, 2022)
Word of the Day

carouse

Definition:(verb) To engage in boisterous, drunken merrymaking.
Synonyms:roister
Usage: They were so happy to be finished with exams that they continued to carouse until morning, when the bartender finally asked them to leave.
Daily Grammar Lesson

Declarative Sentences vs. Imperative Sentences

A declarative sentence makes a statement or argument about what is, was, or will be the case. That is, it talks about that which is asserted to be true. How do declarative sentences differ from imperative sentences? More...
Article of the Day

Pyrophoricity

"Pyrophoric" comes from the Greek word for "fire-bearing"—purophoros—and describes substances, such as uranium or iron sulfide, that are highly reactive and ignite spontaneously when exposed to air or even, strange as it sounds, to water. Though it may seem like they should be handled only in controlled environments, pyrophoric alloys are used to produce the spark in a very common household item: the automatic lighter. What special equipment is needed to put out a pyrophoric fire? More...
This Day in History

The Orangeburg Massacre (1968)

In the Orangeburg massacre, local police in Orangeburg, South Carolina, fired into a crowd of about 200 people protesting segregation, killing three students and injuring 27 others. Although the incident predated the Kent State shootings and Jackson State killings and was the first incident of its kind on a US college campus, the Orangeburg Massacre received relatively little media coverage. On that day, the demonstrators were gathered to protest the segregation of what type of facility? More...
Today's Birthday

Kate Chopin (1851)

A St. Louis, Missouri, native, Chopin moved to Louisiana when she married at the age of 20. After her husband passed away, she returned to St. Louis and began her professional writing career. Now considered a forerunner of 20th-century feminist authors, Chopin gained attention with her many short stories featuring Creole tales and New Orleans culture but virtually stopped publishing after her novel The Awakening was heavily criticized on what grounds? More...
Quotation of the Day
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

Today's Holiday

Firecracker Festival (2024)

Firecrackers are a traditional element of Tet, the Vietnamese New Year celebration, and one town really takes its firecrackers seriously. Each year 16 families are selected to compete in producing the most spectacular display for the town of Dong Ky in Vietnam's Bac Ninh Province. These are huge, elaborately decorated affairs that may require two dozen men to carry and up to $500 to create. Each firecracker is paraded through town and set up on a special tripod for firing. After all the firecrackers have been set off, a panel of judges determines the winning family. More...
Word Trivia

Today's topic: wonder

admire - Can mean "to wonder at, to be slightly surprised." More...

marvel - Traces to Latin mirabilia, from mirari, "wonder at." More...

nine days' wonder - An old term (c. 1325) for an event or phenomenon that attracts enthusiastic interest for a short while, but is then ignored or forgotten. More...

Wonder Bread - Got its name from a vice president who watched a hot-air balloon race shortly before the bread needed a name—"wonder" is how he described the event and then the bread. More...

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