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March 24, 2026
Mar 24, 2026
Word
megillah
noun
Definition
slang a long involved story or account
Example
Instead of just saying she was running late, Lynette went into the whole megillah of why her appointment would have to be rescheduled.
Origin
Although megillah is a slang word in English, it has perfectly respectable Hebrew origins. Megillah derives from the Yiddish megile, which itself comes from the Hebrew word mĕgillāh, meaning "scroll" or "volume." (Mĕgillāh is especially likely to be used in reference to the Book of Esther, which is read aloud at Purim celebrations.) It makes sense, then, that when megillah first appeared in English in the mid-20th century, it referred to a story that was so long (and often tedious or complicated) that it was reminiscent of the length of the mĕgillāh scrolls. The Hebrew word is serious, but the Yiddish megile can be somewhat playful, and our megillah has also inherited that lightheartedness.
Webster's Dictionary
Idiom
the whole kit and caboodle
Everything, every part, as in He packed up all his gear, the whole kit and caboodle, and walked out. This expression is a redundancy, for kit has meant "a collection or group" since the mid-1700s (though this meaning survives only in the full idiom today), and caboodle has been used with the same meaning since the 1840s. In fact caboodle is thought to be a corruption of the phrase kit and boodle, another redundant phrase, since boodle also meant "a collection."
The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms
Fun facts
  1. Chewing gum while peeling onions will prevent you from crying.
  2. A duck has three eyelids.
Snapple's under-the-cap 'Real Facts'
Artist
Willem Claesz. Heda
Dec 14, 1594 - 1680

Willem Claesz. Heda was a Dutch Golden Age artist from the city of Haarlem devoted exclusively to the painting of still life. He is known for his innovation of the late breakfast genre of still life painting.

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Wikipedia, Google Arts & Culture
Historical figure
Mikhail Kalinin
Nov 19, 1875 - Jun 3, 1946

Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, known familiarly by Soviet citizens as "Kalinych", was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet politician. He served as head of state of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and later of the Soviet Union from 1919 to 1946. From 1926, he was a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Born to a peasant family, Kalinin worked as a metal worker in Saint Petersburg and took part in the 1905 Russian Revolution as an early member of the Bolsheviks. During and after the October Revolution, he served as mayor of Petrograd. After the revolution, Kalinin became the head of the new Soviet state, as well as a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Politburo.

Kalinin remained head of the Soviet Union after the rise of Joseph Stalin, but held little real power or influence. He retired in 1946 and died in the same year. The former East-Prussian city of Königsberg was renamed Kaliningrad after him. The city of Tver was also known as Kalinin until the end of the Soviet Union in 1991.

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Wikipedia, Google Arts & Culture
Historic event
Raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby
Dec 16, 1914

The Raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby on 16 December 1914, was an attack by the Imperial German Navy on the British ports of Scarborough, Hartlepool, West Hartlepool and Whitby. The attack resulted in 592 casualties, many of them civilians, of whom 137 died. The attack caused public outrage towards the German Navy for the attack, and against the Royal Navy for its failure to prevent the raid.

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Wikipedia, Google Arts & Culture
Quote
“You are under no obligation to remain the same person you were a year ago, a month ago, or even a day ago. You are here to create yourself, continuously.”
—Richard Feynman