Daily Knowledge "The first wealth is health."
[Ralph Waldo Emerson]
Quote of the Day, from brainyquote.com (2021/12/07)
Article of the Day
The 1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election at the University of Oxford involved candidates with different approaches to Sanskrit scholarship. One was Monier Williams (pictured), an Oxford-educated Englishman and teacher of Sanskrit to those preparing to work in British India. The other, Max Müller, was a German-born specialist in comparative philology. The election came as Britain debated its role in India following the 1857 rebellion. Williams saw the study of Sanskrit as a tool in the conversion of India to Christianity. Müller saw his work as also valuable for its own sake. Both men battled for the votes of Oxford graduates through manifestos and advertisements, and received newspaper endorsements. Special trains to Oxford were provided on the day of the election, 7 December 1860, for non-residents to cast votes. Williams won by a majority of more than 220 votes. Thereafter, he helped to establish the Indian Institute at Oxford, received a knighthood, and held the chair until his death in 1899. (Full article...)
Current Events
BBC One-minute World News
Fast briefed every day.
- China is struggling to achieve its ambitious Covid goal (2021-12-07 00:32)
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- Biden faces high-stakes test in call with Putin over Ukraine (2021-12-07 00:07)
- GOP Rep. Nunes retiring to become CEO of Trump's new media company (2021-12-06 23:45)
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Image of the Day
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
On this day: December 6
December 6: Saint Nicholas Day (Western Christianity); Independence Day in Finland (1917)
- 963 – Pope Leo VIII began his papacy as antipope of Rome.
- 1803 – Haitian Revolution: Nearly all the final French ships in Haiti were captured by the Royal Navy when they attempted to evade the Blockade of Saint-Domingue.
- 1907 – At least 362 miners were killed when an explosion destroyed a mine in Monongah, West Virginia, leading to the establishment of the United States Bureau of Mines.
- 1941 – The British Secret Intelligence Service established a facility known as "Camp X" (pictured) in Ontario, Canada, to train covert agents in clandestine operations.
- 2015 – In Venezuela's parliamentary election, the ruling United Socialist Party lost control of the National Assembly for the first time since 1999.
- Maria de Dominici (b. 1645)
- Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes (b. 1721)
- Pete Rozelle (d. 1996)
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].