Daily Content Archive

Word of the Day
Definition: ()

Article of the Day

Tyrian Purple Tyrian purple is a purple-red natural dye that was highly prized in the ancient world because it did not fade from weathering and sunlight but instead became brighter and more intense. Excreted by the hypobranchial gland of certain mollusks of the genus Murex, Tyrian purple was expensive and a status symbol tightly controlled by sumptuary laws. In Byzantium, it was restricted to coloring silks for imperial use. How is the dye substance used by the sea snails that secrete it? More...

This Day in History

Thurgood Marshall Confirmed as First African-American US Supreme Court Justice (1967) The great-grandson of a slave and the first African American to serve on the US Supreme Court, Marshall was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson at the height of the Civil Rights movement. As a lawyer, he won 29 of the 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court, including the landmark Brown v. Board of Education and others that established equal protection for African Americans in housing, voting, employment, and education. What church has included Marshall in its calendar of saints? More...

Today's Birthday

Muriel Ellen Deason, AKA Kitty Wells (1919) Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Wells sang gospel music in church as a child and performed on radio in the 1930s. She achieved fame with her 1952 hit, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels," a rebuttal to a popular song about wayward women. It made her the first female musician to top the country music charts, paving the way for later female country stars such as Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline. She sang about topics such as drinking and divorce. How did radio stations react to her first hit? More...

Quotation of the Day
The older one grows, the more one likes indecency. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

Idiom of the Day
ripen up — To grow ripe; to become mature enough to harvest or pick. More...

Today's Holiday

Flower Festival of St. Rose (2025) On the island of St. Lucia, two floral societies known as the Roses and the Marguerites pay tribute to their namesake flowers as well as their patron saints: Rose of Lima and Margaret Mary Alacoque. In an intensive process of preparing for the two fêtes, the they each hold a series of dress rehearsals known as séances. The feast day then opens with a church service, which is followed by a street procession presenting the host society's royal entourage. The evening program includes a banquet, the much-awaited performance by the shantwel, and folk dances. More...