"Man is a creature who lives not upon bread alone, but primarily by catchwords."
[Robert Louis Stevenson]
Quote of the Day, from brainyquote.com (2026/01/31)
Article of the Day
The Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice is a 12-story office building in East Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States. Completed in 1967, it was designed in the late modernist style by architect Kevin Roche and engineering partner John Dinkeloo of Roche-Dinkeloo. The building was commissioned as the headquarters of the Ford Foundation, the largest private foundation in the United States at the time. It is a glass-and-steel cube held up by piers made of concrete and clad with Dakota granite. Dan Kiley was the landscape architect for the large public atrium inside, the first such space in an office building in Manhattan. The building has received critical acclaim for its design following both completion and renovation, and the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission has designated the building and its atrium as city landmarks. (Full article...)
Current Events
BBC One-minute World News
Fast briefed every day.
- Trump pleads not guilty to 34 felony counts (1970-01-01 01:00)
- Haberman reveals why Trump attacked judge and his family in speech (2023-04-05 15:30)
- What to know about the Trump indictment on the eve of his court appearance (2023-04-06 00:50)
- READ: Trump indictment related to hush money payment (1970-01-01 01:00)
- Russian authorities detain suspect over St. Petersburg cafe blast (1970-01-01 01:00)
Image of the Day
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
On this day: January 31
January 31: Independence Day in Nauru (1968)
- 1578 – Eighty Years' War: Spanish forces won a crushing victory at the Battle of Gembloux, threatening the States General of the Netherlands and contributing to its move from Brussels to Antwerp.
- 1747 – The London Lock Hospital, the first voluntary hospital specialising in the treatment of venereal diseases, opened.
- 1961 – Aboard NASA's Mercury-Redstone 2, the chimpanzee Ham became the first hominid to be launched into outer space.
- 1988 – Doug Williams became the first African-American quarterback to play in the Super Bowl, leading the Washington Redskins to victory in Super Bowl XXII.
- 2013 – A gas leak underneath the Pemex Executive Tower in Mexico City caused an explosion (aftermath pictured) that killed at least 37 people and injured another 121.
- Zina D. H. Young (b. 1821)
- Eric Burhop (b. 1911)
- Justin Timberlake (b. 1981)
- George Koval (d. 2006)
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].
Daily Knowledge