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"We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do."
[Mother Teresa]

Quote of the Day, from brainyquote.com (2025/12/07)

Trankov and Volosozhar, the pairs champions

The 2015 Trophée Éric Bompard was a figure skating competition sanctioned by the International Skating Union (ISU), and the fourth event of the 2015–16 ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating. Held at the Meriadeck Ice Rink in Bordeaux, France, on 13 November 2015, medals were awarded in men's singles, women's singles, pair skating, and ice dance. The competition was cancelled after the first day, following the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks. The ISU later announced that the short program results would be considered the final results for the competition and any prize money and qualifying points for the Grand Prix Final were distributed. Shoma Uno of Japan won the men's event, Gracie Gold of the United States won the women's event, Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov (both pictured) of Russia won the pairs event, and Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue of the United States won the ice dance event. (Full article...)

Solidus of Tiberius

574 – Suffering from mental illness, Eastern Roman emperor Justin II had his general Tiberius proclaimed Caesar, adopting him as his own son.
1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Prairie Grove ended a Confederate attempt to regain control of northwestern Arkansas.
1972 – Construction workers found the remains of Martin Bormann near Lehrter Station in Berlin, ending a decades-long search after his conviction in absentia at the Nuremberg trials.
1995 – The Galileo spacecraft arrived at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34.
2014 - The annual furry convention Midwest FurFest was targeted in an unsolved chlorine gas attack.

Age of Earth: ~ 4.568 billion years
World Population: 7.3 billion (July 2015)
Continents: 7 (Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia)
Mean Radius: 6371.0 km
Axial Tilt: 23,44°

Image Source: Wikipedia - License: Public Domain (thanks to NASA)

Our solar system consists of
1 star (Sun) and 8 planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune).

1 AU (astronomical unit) is roughly the distance between Earth and the Sun (about 150 million kilometres).
The space probe Voyager 1 was launched by the NASA in 1977 and is meanwhile (autumn 2015) about 133 AU away from Earth.

Image Source: Wikipedia - License: CC BY-SA 3.0