Daily Knowledge

"One faces the future with one's past."
[Pearl S. Buck]

Quote of the Day, from brainyquote.com (2026/06/25)

Augustus (63 BC – AD 14) was the founder of the Roman Empire and the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death. In his youth, his great-uncle Julius Caesar named him as his primary heir, and after Caesar's assassination in 44 BC he inherited his estate and took his name. He seized power by marching on Rome in 43 BC, and he, Mark Antony and Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate. Competing ambitions tore the alliance apart, and Augustus was triumphant, taking imperial power. Augustus enlarged the Empire, but suffered a major setback in Germania. He protected Rome with a buffer of client states and secured peace with the Parthian Empire and the Kingdom of Kush. He developed Roman roads, with an official courier system; established a standing professional army, the Praetorian Guard, as well as official police and fire-fighting services for Rome; and renovated much of the city during his reign. The reign of Augustus initiated an imperial cult and an era of imperial peace. (Full article...)

CIA diagram of Area 51

1658 – Anglo-Spanish War: The largest battle ever fought on Jamaica, the three-day Battle of Rio Nuevo, began.
1940 – Second World War: Operation Aerial, an evacuation of nearly 200,000 Allied soldiers from French ports, was completed.
1950 – The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 82 condemning the North Korean invasion of South Korea.
2013 – In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the CIA acknowledged the existence of Area 51 (diagram pictured), a secretive U.S. Air Force facility in Nevada and a subject of various UFO, and other, conspiracy theories.
2022 – Russian invasion of Ukraine: Russian forces captured the city of Sievierodonetsk, Ukraine, after six weeks of fighting.

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