Daily Knowledge "The great advantage about telling the truth is that nobody ever believes it."
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
Quote of the Day, from brainyquote.com (2025/11/30)
Article of the Day
The Mechanical Turk, also known as the "Automaton Chess Player" or "the Turk", was a chess-playing machine, first displayed in 1770, which appeared to be able to play a strong game of chess autonomously, but whose pieces were in reality moved via levers and magnets by a chess master hidden in the machine's lower cavity. The machine was toured and exhibited for 84 years as an automaton, and continued giving occasional exhibitions until 1854, when it was destroyed in a fire. In 1857, an article published by the owner's son revealed that it was an elaborate hoax, a fact suspected by some but never fully explained while the machine still existed. Constructed by Wolfgang von Kempelen to impress Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, the Turk won most games, including those against statesmen such as Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin. The device demonstrated the knight's tour, a puzzle that requires a knight to visit every square of a chessboard once. (Full article...)
Current Events
BBC One-minute World News
Fast briefed every day.
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Image of the Day
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
On this day: November 30
November 30: Saint Andrew's Day (Christianity)
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- 1803 – An expedition led by Francisco Javier de Balmis departed A Coruña, Spain, with the aim of vaccinating millions in South America and Asia against smallpox.
- 1935 – A college football game between the SMU Mustangs and the TCU Horned Frogs became the first game in Texas to be broadcast nationally on radio.
- 1979 – The Wall, a rock opera and concept album by the English band Pink Floyd, was first released.
- 2005 – John Sentamu was enthroned as Archbishop of York, becoming the first black archbishop in the Church of England.
- 2018 – A magnitude-7.1 earthquake (aftermath pictured) hit Anchorage, Alaska, causing 117 injuries.
- William-Adolphe Bouguereau (b. 1825)
- Eugenia Washington (d. 1900)
- Henry Taube (b. 1915)
- Shane MacGowan (d. 2023)
Knowledge about Earth
Facts and Figures
- 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
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
Why you should extend your general knowledge:
There are many reasons why one should or wants to extend his knowledge.
First you should consider that "general knowledge" is knowledge which a group of humans - who belong together regional, temporal or otherwise - owns. Thus, it describes a basic understanding of specific categories of knowledge.
As the English philosopher Francis Bacon said before: "Wisdom is Power" [Bacon 1597].