Daily Content Archive
(as of Friday, December 13, 2019)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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ballyhoo
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| Article of the Day | |
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 OcherAmong the earliest pigments used by mankind, ocher has a yellow-orange to orange color and is made of varying proportions of iron oxide and clay. The world's first known works of art, found in South Africa’s Blombos Cave and dated to 75,000 years ago, consist of ocher pieces engraved with abstract designs, and Cro-Magnon artists living about 10,000 to 40,000 years ago used ocher in their cave paintings. The 2nd-century BCE Egyptian Ebers Papyrus lists what non-artistic use for ocher? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Battle of the River Plate (1939)In the early months of World War II, the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee had been seeking out and sinking British merchant ships, a practice known as commerce raiding. The British navy tracked down the German ship and engaged it near the River Plate, in what was the first major naval engagement of the war. Outgunned, the Germans sailed for Montevideo in the hopes of making repairs. Shortly thereafter, the captain, believing his forces to be outnumbered, made what decision? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Mary Todd Lincoln (1818)Mary Todd Lincoln, the wife of President Abraham Lincoln, was a tragic figure of the American Civil War period. As First Lady, she was criticized for her use of taxpayers' money in refurbishing the White House and was even accused of harboring Confederate sympathies. She struggled with depression after witnessing her husband's assassination and suffering the deaths of three of her children, and she was committed to an insane asylum for several months in 1875. Who had her committed? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 It is impossible for good or evil to last for ever; and hence it follows that the evil having lasted long, the good must be now nigh at hand.Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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not say boo to a goose— To be particularly shy, diffident, or timid by nature. Primarily heard in UK. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Susuharai (2022)In Japan, many people choose to give their houses a thorough cleaning at year's end. Worn or broken furniture and utensils and items that have been lost are replaced. New tatami mats, the thick straw mats on which people sit and sleep, are brought in, and damage to the paper sliding doors in traditional Japanese houses is repaired. In some areas, it is customary to tie pounded rice cakes (mochi-bana, "rice-cake flowers") to the branches of willow trees as an offering to the gods. Friends and co-workers may also throw "year-end forgetting parties" known as bonen-kai. More... | |