"Our life is what our thoughts make it."
[Marcus Aurelius]
Quote of the Day, from brainyquote.com (2026/08/23)
Article of the Day
The Edmontosaurus mummy SMF R 4036 is a dinosaur fossil in the collection of the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt, Germany. It was found in 1910 in Wyoming, United States, in rocks of the Lance Formation that are about 66 million years old. The mummy is ascribed to the species Edmontosaurus annectens. It comprises a nearly complete skeleton found wrapped in skin impressions, a rare case of preservation for which the term dinosaur mummy has been used. It is assumed that the individual died during a drought and the carcass dried out before being carried away by a sudden flood and buried rapidly. Sand filled the body cavity, preserving the three-dimensional shape of the body, and a biofilm on the skin formed a thin crust of clay that preserved the shape of the skin in positive relief (protruding up from the surface). The mummy was found by Charles Sternberg and his sons. It is one of the best-preserved hadrosaurid mummies and the second to be discovered. (Full article...)
Current Events
BBC One-minute World News
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Image of the Day
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
On this day: August 22
August 22: Madras Day in Chennai, India (1639)
- 1485 – At the Battle of Bosworth Field, Lancastrian forces under Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, defeated Yorkist forces under Richard III of England, decisively ending the Wars of the Roses.
- 1711 – Queen Anne's War: A British attempt to attack Quebec failed when eight ships wrecked on the St. Lawrence River.
- 1851 – The yacht America won the race for the Cup of One Hundred Sovereigns (trophy pictured), later renamed the America's Cup, near the Isle of Wight, England.
- 1985 – A fire broke out on British Airtours Flight 28M at Manchester Airport, causing 55 deaths mostly due to smoke inhalation, and leading to changes to make aircraft evacuation more effective.
- 2003 – Roy Moore, Alabama's chief justice, was suspended after refusing to comply with a U.S. federal court order to remove a rock inscribed with the Ten Commandments from the lobby of the Supreme Court of Alabama building.
- John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland (d. 1553)
- George Herriman (b. 1880)
- Kate Chopin (d. 1904)
- Lautaro Martínez (b. 1997)
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].
Daily Knowledge