Daily Knowledge

"Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind."
[Theodore Roosevelt]

Quote of the Day, from brainyquote.com (2026/08/23)

Belarusian stamp commemorating the 2002 Winter Olympics

The pairs' figure skating competition at the 2002 Winter Olympics was held on February 9 and 11 at the Salt Lake Ice Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, in the United States. Originally, Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze of Russia won the gold, while Jamie Salé and David Pelletier of Canada won the silver, and Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo of China won the bronze. However, allegations of misconduct led to one judge's scores being discarded; Salé and Pelletier were also awarded gold medals, while the Russians were allowed to keep theirs. In a joint press conference, the International Skating Union (ISU) and the International Olympic Committee announced that Marie-Reine Le Gougne, the French judge implicated in collusion, was guilty of misconduct and immediately suspended. In 2004, the ISU voted to retire the 6.0 judging system. As a result, the ISU Judging System was created, in which skaters are scored based on a technical evaluation of the required elements. (Full article...)

Natascha Kampusch

1305 – William Wallace, a leader of Scottish resistance against England during the Wars of Scottish Independence, was hanged, drawn and quartered.
1775 – King George III issued a proclamation that declared elements of the American colonies of Great Britain to be in a state of "open and avowed rebellion".
1960 – Congo Crisis: In order to stop the secession of South Kasai from the Republic of Congo, Armée Nationale Congolaise forces launched an invasion of South Kasai.
2006 – Natascha Kampusch (pictured), who had been abducted at the age of ten in Vienna, escaped from her captor's house in Strasshof an der Nordbahn after more than eight years in captivity.
2011 – A 5.8 M_W earthquake struck the Piedmont region of Virginia, and was felt by more people than any other quake in U.S. history.

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