Daily Content Archive
(as of Monday, December 27, 2021)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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| Article of the Day | |
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 The GlaubergThe presence of ancient ruins on the Glauberg plateau in Hesse, Germany, had long been attributed to the Romans, until the 1906 discovery of a torc—a metal necklace—which pointed to a Celtic influence. The Glauberg is one of a network of fortified sites found in parts of Germany. In 1988, a historian flying overhead discovered tumuli—mounds of earth protecting tombs—that were revealed to contain warriors' remains and weapons. Perhaps the most significant discovery, though, was a statue of whom? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Charles Darwin Sets Sail on HMS Beagle (1831)The theory of evolution, which Darwin first expressed in On the Origin of Species, was the result of his discoveries as a naturalist on board the HMS Beagle. His book explained evolution through the principles of natural selection and aroused widespread debate among scientists and religious leaders. Darwin spent the rest of his life studying the results of that expedition and developing his theory of evolution. What debilitating disease might he have contracted during the voyage? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Johannes Kepler (1571)Described by famed astronomer Carl Sagan as "the first astrophysicist and the last scientific astrologer," Johannes Kepler was a German astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer. A key figure in the scientific revolution, Kepler derived three famous laws of planetary motion, which, among other things, established that the planets travel around the Sun in elliptical rather than circular orbits. When Kepler was six, his mother, who was later tried for witchcraft, took him to see what phenomenon? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future.Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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fox's sleep— A state of apparent sleep (or feigned indifference) in which someone is actually aware of everything going on around him or her. Alludes to the idea that foxes sleep with one eye open and thus are always at the ready. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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_03.jpg) St. John the Evangelist's Day (2022)John the Evangelist was thought to be not only the youngest of the Apostles but the longest-lived, dying peacefully of natural causes at an advanced age. Although he escaped actual martyrdom, St. John endured considerable persecution and suffering for his beliefs. He is said to have drunk poison to prove his faith, been cast into a cauldron of boiling oil, and at one point banished to the Greek island of Patmos. He remained miraculously unharmed throughout these trials and returned to Ephesus, where it is believed he wrote the Gospel according to John. More... | |