Daily Content Archive
(as of Sunday, April 30, 2023)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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propinquity
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Using Indefinite Articles with Uncountable NounsUncountable nouns cannot take the indefinite articles "a" or "an" in a sentence. Why not? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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%2c_1860_-_ca._1900.jpg) RickshawsA rickshaw is a small, two-wheeled carriage that is usually drawn by one person. The first rickshaws appeared in Japan around 1868 and became a popular mode of transportation because human labor was considerably cheaper than that of horses. Rickshaws were mainly used in Asia, but nowadays they are outlawed in many places and have been replaced by cycle and auto rickshaws. What is the origin of the carriage's name? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Hitler Commits Suicide (1945)In the final days of World War II, as the Red Army of the Soviet Union was closing in on his underground bunker in Berlin, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler committed suicide by shooting himself while simultaneously biting into a cyanide capsule. Hitler's body and that of Eva Braun—his mistress whom he had wed the day before—were then placed in a bomb crater, doused with gasoline, and set on fire by German officials. How did Soviet soldiers identify Hitler's remains? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Kaspar Hauser (1812)In 1828, a teenage boy appeared in Nuremberg, Germany, carrying a letter that stated he had been placed in the care of the anonymous author as an infant. This caretaker claimed to have taught the boy reading, writing, and religion but never let him leave the house. The boy barely spoke but confirmed that he had been kept in a dark prison hole. In the following years, he sustained several mysterious injuries, and he was fatally stabbed in 1833. Who is thought to have been behind his death? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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first port of call— The first place where one stops to visit, accomplish something, or begin a process. Taken from nautical terminology, referring to the first port that a seafaring vessel calls in to at the beginning of a voyage. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 May Day Eve (Czech Republic) (2023)According to an old Czech superstition, witches try to enter people's homes on the eve of May Day and do them harm. The "Burning of the Witches" ceremony is observed in some parts of the country by building bonfires on the mountain tops. In Postupice, a town in the Bohemian region, a Maypole and Burning of the Witches Festival is held April 30-May 1 every year. The young men put up a maypole in the village square on the afternoon of April 30. The next day the burning of the witches takes place, when the villagers throw their broomsticks into the bonfire and burn the witches in effigy. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: shakingpulsatilla - Can refer to the shaking of a flower in the wind. More... quassation - The act or process of being shaken or shaking. More... concussion - Its underlying etymological notion is of "violent shaking," from Latin concutere, "shake violently." More... Shaker - The Shakers got their name from the shaking and convulsive movements they made during worship. More... | |