Daily Content Archive
(as of Thursday, May 12, 2022)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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gallimaufry
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| Daily Grammar Lesson | |
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Negative Adverbs Meaning "Not Often" or "Not Ever"Negative adverbs and negative adverbials are used to modify the meaning of a verb, adjective, other adverb, or entire clause in a negative way. When we want to stress how infrequently something occurs, what negative adverbs can we use? More... | |
| Article of the Day | |
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 Olga Korbut: The Sparrow from MinskKorbut was a Soviet gymnast who made a splash at the 1972 Munich Olympics when she took home three gold medals and a silver medal. Diminutive and charismatic, she was the first person ever to do a backward aerial somersault on the balance beam and the first to perform a backward release move on the uneven parallel bars. She greatly increased the popularity of gymnastics and influenced the sport's turn toward a more athletic, powerful style. What two gymnastics moves did Korbut invent? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Soviet Union Lifts Blockade of Berlin (1949)One of the first major crises of the Cold War, the Berlin blockade began in June 1948 during the multinational occupation of post-WWII Germany. In an attempt to force its former wartime allies—the US, the UK, and France—out of Berlin, the USSR began a blockade of all rail, road, and water traffic through East Germany to West Berlin. Rather than withdraw, the Western powers bypassed the blockade by airlifting thousands of tons of supplies into the city each day. What was Operation Little Vittles? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828)Rossetti was a British painter, poet, and founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, an association of painters who aimed to combat the shallow conventionalism of academic painting and revive the fidelity to nature and the vivid realistic color that they considered typical of Italian painting before Raphael. Although Rossetti found some financial success as a painter, his lasting reputation rests upon his poetry. What did he have buried with his wife—and later exhumed? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 It is easier to be a lover than a husband for the simple reason that it is more difficult to be witty every day than to say pretty things from time to time.Honore de Balzac (1799-1850) | |
| Idiom of the Day | |
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a life of its own— The state of something that exists and thrives outside and beyond the control of the point of origin. More... | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Boston Pops (2023)Henry Lee Higginson, who established the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1881, believed that in the summer, "concerts of a lighter kind of music" should be presented. People began to refer fondly to these summer concerts as "the Pops," a name which became official in 1900. The Boston Pops tailors its programs around American music and musicians, medleys of popular songs, and familiar movements of classical works. Outside of its official concert season at Symphony Hall, where it performs through May and June, the Pops also tours the United States. More... | |
| Word Trivia | |
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Today's topic: plasticaglet - The plastic or metal covering on the end of a shoelace (formerly called the point) that makes it easier to thread through the eyelet holes. More... plastic - From Greek plastos, "to form, mold." More... plastic surgery - Dates to 1837; "plastic" is used in the sense of "molding, shaping." More... velo binding - A type of document fastener using a narrow strip of plastic on the front and back and attached with thin plastic pegs through the pages; also called velobind. More... | |