Daily Knowledge "I want to live my life, not record it."
[Jackie Kennedy]
Quote of the Day, from brainyquote.com (2025/12/11)
Article of the Day
George Mason (December 11, 1725 – October 7, 1792) was a Founding Father of the United States. A delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, he was one of three delegates who refused to sign the Constitution. His writings have exercised a significant influence on American political thought and events. The Virginia Declaration of Rights, which Mason principally authored, served as a basis for the United States Bill of Rights, of which he has been deemed a father. Many clauses in the Constitution were influenced by Mason's input, but he ultimately did not sign, citing the lack of a bill of rights. His prominent fight for a bill of rights led fellow Virginian James Madison to introduce one during the First Congress in 1789; these amendments were ratified in 1791, a year before Mason died. Obscure after his death, Mason later came to be recognized in the 20th and 21st centuries for his contributions to Virginia and the early United States. (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: December 11
- 1899 – Second Boer War: In the Battle of Magersfontein, Boers defeated British forces trying to relieve the Siege of Kimberley.
- 1925 – Pope Pius XI promulgated the encyclical Quas primas, establishing the Feast of Christ the King.
- 1972 – Apollo 17 (Lunar Roving Vehicle pictured), the last Apollo mission, landed on the Moon.
- 1998 – With its pilot believed to have been suffering from spatial disorientation, Thai Airways Flight 261 crashed in a swamp on approach to Surat Thani Airport, resulting in 101 deaths.
- 2005 – Demonstrations in Cronulla, a suburb of Sydney, against recent violence towards locals turned into a series of race riots.
- Pieter Nuyts (d. 1655)
- Isaac Shelby (b. 1750)
- Max Born (b. 1882)
- Emmanuelle Charpentier (b. 1968)
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].