Daily Knowledge

"Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself."
[Henry Ward Beecher]

Quote of the Day, from brainyquote.com (2019/07/17)

Ajay Devgn

The Legend of Bhagat Singh is an Indian historical biographical film directed by Rajkumar Santoshi and released in 2002. Singh, who witnessed the Jallianwala Bagh massacre as a child, was a socialist revolutionary of the Hindustan Republic Association who fought for Indian independence. The film features Ajay Devgn (pictured) as Singh, Sushant Singh, D. Santosh and Akhilendra Mishra. The story and dialogue were written by Santoshi and Piyush Mishra, respectively. The film was released to generally positive reviews, with the direction, story, screenplay, technical aspects and performances of Devgn and Sushant receiving the most attention. Produced on a budget of ₹200–250 million (about US$4.15–5.18 million in 2002), the film earned only ₹129.35 million at the box office. It went on to win two National Film Awards – Best Feature Film in Hindi and Best Actor for Devgn – and three Filmfare Awards from eight nominations. (Full article...)

Etching depicting Lafayette ordering his troops to fire

1791 – French Revolution: Members of the National Guard fired into a large crowd (pictured) that was gathered at the Champ de Mars, Paris, to sign a petition demanding the removal of Louis XVI.
1936 – Nationalist rebels attempted a coup d'état against the Second Spanish Republic, sparking the Spanish Civil War.
1981 – A structural failure caused a walkway at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, U.S., to collapse, killing 114 people and injuring 216 others.
1992 – Elizabeth II officially opened the Manchester Metrolink, the first modern street-running light rail system in the United Kingdom.
2007 – TAM Airlines Flight 3054 crash-landed at the Congonhas Airport in São Paulo, Brazil, killing 199 people, the highest death toll of any aviation accident in Brazil and the highest death toll of any accident involving an Airbus A320 airliner.

Empress Dowager Du (d. 961) · Eunice Newton Foote (b. 1819) · Florence Fuller (d. 1946)

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