Daily Knowledge

"Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn't be done."
[Amelia Earhart]

Quote of the Day, from brainyquote.com (2026/08/07)

Henry Macandrew (7 August 1866 – 16 July 1919) was a British Indian Army officer. He fought through the Tirah campaign in India, and then served as a staff officer during the Boer War, and received the Distinguished Service Order. Given command of the 5th Bengal Cavalry, upon the outbreak of the First World War he travelled to France as general staff officer grade 1 of the 1st Indian Cavalry Division. He was then promoted to become brigadier-general general staff for the Indian Cavalry Corps, with which he participated in the Battle of Neuve-Chapelle. Macandrew assumed command of the 2nd Indian Cavalry Division, leading it during the Battle of the Somme and the Battle of Cambrai. Later he was given command of the newly created 5th Cavalry Division for service in the Sinai and Palestine campaign, participating in events including the Capture of Damascus and the Battle of Aleppo. Knighted in 1919, Macandrew stayed with the 5th Cavalry Division at Aleppo, but died there later in the year. (Full article...)

U.S. Marines wading ashore on Tulagi

1461 – Ming Chinese general Cao Qin staged a failed coup against the Tianshun Emperor.
1942 – World War II: U.S. Marines initiated the first American offensive of the Guadalcanal campaign, with landings on Tulagi (pictured), Gavutu–Tanambogo and Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
1946 – The Soviet Union informed Turkey that the way in which the latter was handling the Turkish Straits no longer represented the security interests of Turkey's fellow Black Sea nations, escalating the Turkish Straits crisis.
1970 – Jonathan Jackson took hostages in a courthouse in Marin County, California, to coerce the release of the Soledad Brothers, resulting in the deaths of judge Harold Haley and three others.
2020 – Air India Express Flight 1344 overshot the runway at Calicut International Airport in Kerala, India, and crashed, killing 21 of the 190 people on board.

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