Daily Knowledge "The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up."
[Paul Valery]
Quote of the Day, from brainyquote.com (2026/08/18)
Article of the Day
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The siege of Brest took place in 1342 during the Breton Civil War, a dispute over who should inherit the Duchy of Brittany, with Charles of Blois, supported by a large French army, besieging supporters of John of Montfort. As France and England were engaged in the Hundred Years' War, the Monfortists appealed to the English king for military assistance, which was promised. It was slow in coming, and by July 1342 Brest was the last fortification held for the Montfort cause. The town was blockaded from the sea by 14 mercenary Genoese galleys. On 18 August, an English fleet of 260 ships (example pictured), commanded by William of Northampton, sailed into the Brest Roads and overwhelmed the galleys, burning 11. The English ships carried only a small fighting force, but seeing so many enemy ships and the English vanguard disembarking, Charles broke off the siege and withdrew. The historian Jonathan Sumption describes this as extraordinary. The Breton Civil War continued until 1365, and the Hundred Years' War until 1453. (Full article...)
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Image of the Day
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
On this day: August 18
- 1783 – A meteor procession blazed across the night sky over Great Britain.
- 1891 – A hurricane struck the Caribbean island of Martinique, killing about 700 people, injuring at least 1,000 others, and causing severe damage.
- 1920 – The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women's suffrage in the country.
- 1966 – Vietnam War: Members of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment were surrounded by a much larger Viet Cong unit at the Battle of Long Tan (helicopter pictured), but held them off for several hours until reinforcements arrived.
- 2008 – Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf resigned under pressure from a movement to impeach him.
- Mother Solomon (d. 1890)
- Evan Gattis (b. 1986)
- Nick Fuentes (b. 1998)
- Machali (d. 2016)
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].