Daily Content Archive

Word of the Day
acumen Definition: (noun) Shrewdness shown by keen insight. Synonyms: insightfulness Usage: His sharp business acumen meant he quickly rose to the top.

Article of the Day

St. Isidore In the 4th and 5th centuries, Gothic invaders terrorized the Roman Empire, sacking Rome and establishing a Gothic kingdom in Spain. St. Isidore, archbishop of Seville, set out to convert the various peoples of the Gothic Empire to Christianity, eventually eradicating the Visigoths’ religion of Arianism. Later hailed by the Church as "the most learned man of the latter ages," Isidore was the first Christian writer to compose a compendium of universal religious knowledge. What was it called? More...

This Day in History

King Henry VIII of England Marries Sixth and Last Wife, Catherine Parr (1543) By 1543, Henry VIII had had five marriages, which respectively ended in one divorce, one annulment, and three deaths—two by beheading. He then married Parr, his sixth and final wife. She had a good influence on the increasingly paranoid king—her third husband—and developed close friendships with his children, even acting as guardian of one of Henry's daughters after his death in 1547. Why, then, did Parr send her beloved stepdaughter, the future Queen Elizabeth I, away the next year? More...

Today's Birthday

Oscar Hammerstein II (1895) The grandson of an opera impresario of the same name, Hammerstein studied law before beginning the theater career that made him one of the foremost songwriters in the US. In the early 1940s, he began a prolific and successful collaboration with Richard Rodgers that resulted in plays like The King and I, The Sound of Music, and the Pulitzer Prize winners Oklahoma! and South Pacific. How did New York City honor Hammerstein following his death in August 1960? More...

Quotation of the Day
Unless wicked ideas take root in a naturally depraved mind, human nature, in a right and wholesome state, revolts at crime. Still, from an artificial civilization have originated wants, vices, and false tastes, which occasionally become so powerful as to ... lead us into guilt and wickedness. Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870)

Idiom of the Day
(one's) blood runs cold — One becomes seized by an acute and intense sensation of fear, panic, horror, or dread. More...

Today's Holiday
Kiribati Independence Day (2025) This island group in the middle of the Pacific Ocean was known as the Gilbert Islands until its independence from Britain on July 12, 1979. Independence Day is observed as a national holiday. More...