Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, July 5, 2020)| Word of the Day | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
high-spirited
| |||||||
| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
|---|---|
Primary InterjectionsPrimary interjections are interjections that are single words derived not from any other word class, but from sounds. Nonetheless, primary interjections do have widely recognized meanings. What are some common examples? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
|---|---|
 The Book of ThelThe Book of Thel is an illustrated poem published by English author and illustrator William Blake around 1789. It tells the story of a young woman—Thel—who seeks to understand why all things must die. She poses this question to a lily, a cloud, a worm, and a clod of clay. The clod invites Thel to visit the underworld, where she hears questions even more troubling than her own and flees in terror. The relatively short poem is rife with allegory. What might the character of Thel represent? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
|---|---|
 Dolly, the First Cloned Sheep, Is Born (1996)Perhaps the most famous sheep in history, Dolly was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell through the somatic cell nuclear transfer technique, in which the nucleus of an egg cell is replaced by the nucleus of a cell from the organism to be cloned. In successful cases, the egg cell develops into a healthy fetus, but the success rate of cloning has been low. Of 277 eggs, only 29 created viable embryos, and Dolly was the only one to survive to adulthood. How did she get her name? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
|---|---|
 P. T. Barnum (1810)Barnum may be best known for the circus he formed with James Bailey in 1881, but this took place late in his life and was neither his first, nor sole, line of work. The splashy showman was also an author and, oddly enough, a politician. Yes, the man who may have said "There's a sucker born every minute" was elected to office—more than once. Apparently fond of seeing his name in print, Barnum published his autobiography in 1855 and even got a newspaper to oblige him in what way before his death? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
|---|---|
 Be still my heart; thou hast known worse than this.Homer (900 BC-800 BC) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
|---|---|
jump in (one's) skin— To start or recoil, as from shock, surprise, or fear. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
|---|---|
 Tynwald Ceremony (2024)The Isle of Man, located off the coast of England in the Irish Sea, was once the property of the Vikings. It was here that they established their custom of holding an open-air court for the settling of disputes and the passing of laws. Today, the Tynwald Ceremony—whose name comes from the Norse Thing vollr, meaning a fenced open parliament—is held at St. John's on Tynwald Hill on July 5, when the chief justice reads a brief summary of every bill that has been passed during the year—first in English, and then in Manx, the old language of the island. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
|---|---|
Today's topic: lapis lazuliazure stone - Another name for the lapis lazuli. More... lapis lazuli - A sky-blue semiprecious stone, it is pronounced lap-us-LAY-zuh-lee. More... sapphire - From Greek sappheiros, "lapis lazuli" or "blue stone." More... ultramarine - First a blue pigment made from lapis lazuli, imported from Asia by sea, so, in Latin, it was ultramarinus, "beyond the seas." More... | |