Daily Knowledge "If you want a thing done well, do it yourself."
[Napoleon Bonaparte]
Quote of the Day, from brainyquote.com (2026/08/06)
Article of the Day
The Big Duck is a 20-foot-tall (6.1 m) ferrocement building in the shape of a duck, and a canonical example of novelty architecture. Built in 1931 in Riverhead, New York, it was moved several times to locations on eastern Long Island, ending up in Flanders in 2007. This structure inspired the word duck as a common term in academic literature used to refer to buildings shaped like everyday objects or describe excessive ornamentation used in graphical presentations of data. It was built by duck farmer Martin Maurer for use as a shop to sell ducks and duck eggs. This was during a period when duck farming was a growing industry on eastern Long Island and novelty architecture was on the rise due to the increasing popularity of automobiles. It was added to both the National Register of Historic Places and the New York State Register of Historic Places in 1997, and is a principal building on the Big Duck Ranch, which was listed on both registers in 2008. (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
_Mount_Sheba.jpg)
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
On this day: August 6
- 686 – Second Fitna: Pro-Alid forces defeated the Umayyad Caliphate at the Battle of Khazir, allowing them to take control of Mosul in present-day Iraq.
- 1930 – New York Supreme Court judge Joseph Force Crater disappeared in Manhattan, in a case that was never solved.
- 1996 – Researchers announced that the meteorite ALH84001 (pictured), discovered in the Allan Hills of Antarctica, may contain evidence of life on Mars, but further tests were inconclusive.
- 2010 – Flash floods, mudslides, and debris flows across Ladakh in Indian-administered Kashmir left at least 255 people dead.
- 2011 – A series of riots broke out in several London boroughs and in cities and towns across England in response to the shooting of Mark Duggan by Metropolitan Police officers.
- Dominic de Guzmán (d. 1221)
- Lucille Ball (b. 1911)
- Bix Beiderbecke (d. 1931)
- John Richard Clark Hall (d. 1931)
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].