Daily Knowledge "We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."
[E. M. Forster]
Quote of the Day, from brainyquote.com (2026/01/21)
Article of the Day
The Greensburg tornado struck on May 4, 2007, in Kiowa County, Kansas, heavily damaging the town of Greensburg. It tracked 28.8 miles (46.3 km) through the area, killing 12 people and injuring 63. The tornado was the first to be rated EF5 on the Enhanced Fujita scale. The tornado heavily damaged Greensburg; 662 structures in the town sustained some form of damage and 95 percent of the town was damaged or destroyed. It dissipated northwest of Greensburg after being on the ground for just over an hour. The tornado left monetary losses of $250 million (2007 USD) in its wake. Kiowa County was declared a federal disaster area in the immediate aftermath. Rebuilding efforts were intensive, and several major federal government agencies collaborated with state agencies to help restore the town with the goal of making it a "green town" using a long-term community recovery plan. (This article is part of a featured topic: Tornado outbreak of May 4–6, 2007.)
Current Events
BBC One-minute World News
Fast briefed every day.
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Image of the Day
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Source: Wikimedia Commons.
On this day: January 21
January 21: Feast day of Saint Agnes (Christianity); National Hugging Day (United States)
- 1326 – King Edward II of England issued a royal charter confirming Adam de Brome's foundation of Oriel College, Oxford.
- 1931 – Isaac Isaacs (pictured) became the first Australian-born governor-general of Australia.
- 1968 – Vietnam War: The People's Army of Vietnam attacked Khe Sanh Combat Base, a U.S. Marines outpost in Quảng Trị province, South Vietnam, starting the Battle of Khe Sanh.
- 1976 – The Concorde, an Anglo-French supersonic airliner, began scheduled commercial flights to London, Paris, Bahrain, and Rio de Janeiro.
- 2011 – Demonstrations against alleged corruption in the Albanian government led to the killings of four protesters in Tirana by the Republican Guard.
- Anna Morandi Manzolini (b. 1714)
- Phan Đình Phùng (d. 1896)
- Yasunori Mitsuda (b. 1972)
- IShowSpeed (b. 2005)
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].