Daily Knowledge

"Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil."
[Baltasar Gracian]

Quote of the Day, from brainyquote.com (2026/09/16)

Grace Coolidge (1879–1957) was the first lady of the United States from 1923 to 1929 as the wife of President Calvin Coolidge. Born and raised in Burlington, Vermont, she attended the University of Vermont, then moved to Northampton, Massachusetts, to teach at Clarke School for the Deaf. She married Calvin in 1905 and Calvin's career progressed in state politics. They moved to Washington, D.C., after Calvin's election as vice president in 1921, and into the White House after the death of Warren G. Harding in 1923. Coolidge was active as first lady, hosting thousands of guests each year, making regular public appearances in the President's stead. She was a highly popular first lady; her fashion choices were influential among American women. The Coolidges returned to Northampton in 1929, and she began traveling following her husband's death in 1933. Coolidge was an advocate of American involvement in World War II. She was involved in schools and programs for the deaf until her death. (Full article...)

Radar image of Typhoon Nancy

681 – Pope Honorius I was posthumously excommunicated at the Third Council of Constantinople, with his support for monothelitism deemed to be heretical.
1776 – American Revolutionary War: American colonists defeated British troops at the Battle of Harlem Heights on the island of Manhattan.
1961 – Typhoon Nancy (pictured), which possibly had the strongest winds ever measured in a tropical cyclone, made landfall in Muroto, Japan.
1963 – Malaysia was formed as an independent nation from the Federation of Malaya, the Colony of Singapore, the Crown Colony of North Borneo, and the Crown Colony of Sarawak.
2007 – One-Two-Go Airlines Flight 269 crashed after attempting a poorly executed go-around while landing in Thailand, killing 90 of the 130 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