Daily Knowledge "The true art of memory is the art of attention."
[Samuel Johnson]
Quote of the Day, from brainyquote.com (2026/03/19)
Article of the Day
Hurricane Hilary was a large and intense Pacific hurricane in August 2023 that brought torrential rainfall to the Pacific Coast of Mexico and the Southwestern United States, resulting in widespread flooding. It was the eighth named storm, sixth hurricane, and fourth major hurricane of the active and highly destructive 2023 Pacific hurricane season. Hilary originated from a tropical wave south of Mexico on August 16, and became a hurricane a day later. It underwent rapid intensification, reaching maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (220 km/h) on August 18, making it a Category 4 storm on the Saffir–Simpson scale. Thousands of people evacuated to shelters as ports closed along the Pacific Coast of Mexico. In anticipation of "catastrophic and life-threatening flooding", the National Hurricane Center issued its first-ever tropical storm warning for Southern California, extending from the Mexico–U.S. border to just north of Los Angeles. Death Valley National Park closed for two months. (Full article...)
Current Events
BBC One-minute World News
Fast briefed every day.
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Image of the Day
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
On this day: March 19
March 19: Saint Joseph's Day (Western Christianity)
- 1563 – The Edict of Amboise was signed, ending the first war in the French Wars of Religion and inaugurating a period of official peace that lasted until 1567.
- 1808 – King Charles IV of Spain was forced to abdicate in favour of his son Ferdinand VII as a result of the Tumult of Aranjuez.
- 1964 – Between 300,000 and 500,000 Brazilians attended the March of the Family with God for Liberty (pictured), in protest against the government of João Goulart and against communism.
- 1979 – The American cable television network C-SPAN, covering government proceedings and public-affairs programming, was launched.
- 2008 – The gamma-ray burst GRB 080319B was observed, setting a record for the farthest event from Earth observable with the naked eye.
- Alonso Cano (b. 1601)
- Felix Jacoby (b. 1876)
- Heather Robertson (b. 1942; d. 2014)
- Virginia Henderson (d. 1996)
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].