Daily Knowledge

"Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness."
[Lucius Annaeus Seneca]

Quote of the Day, from brainyquote.com (2019/01/16)

The political career of John C. Breckinridge included service in the governments of Kentucky, the United States, and the Confederate States of America. Breckinridge (January 16, 1821 – May 17, 1875) was inaugurated in 1857 as James Buchanan's vice president, and remains the youngest person to ever hold the office. In 1860 he ran as the presidential candidate of a dissident group of Southern Democrats and won the electoral votes of most of the Southern states, but he finished a distant second among four candidates, losing the election to the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln. Most Southern states seceded, but Kentucky stayed in the Union. Previously elected to a U.S. Senate term that began in 1861, Breckenridge fled the state, joined the Confederate States Army, and was expelled from the Senate. Confederate President Jefferson Davis appointed him Secretary of War in February 1865. (Full article...)

27 BC – Gaius Octavianus (statue pictured) was given the titles Augustus and Princeps by the Roman Senate when he became the first Roman emperor.
1780 – Anglo-Spanish War: The Royal Navy gained their first major naval victory over their European enemies in the war when they defeated a Spanish squadron in the Battle of Cape St. Vincent.
1905 – Despite being blind in one eye, ice hockey player Frank McGee set the record for most goals in a Stanley Cup game when he scored 14 against the Dawson City Nuggets.
1920 – The League of Nations, the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation with a focus on peace and security, held its first council meeting in Paris.
1964 – The musical Hello, Dolly! opened at the St. James Theatre on Broadway, and went on to win ten Tony Awards, a record that stood for 37 years.

Nikephoros Choumnos (d. 1327) · William Hall-Jones (b. 1851) · Pauline Phillips (d. 2013)

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