Daily Knowledge "There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth."
[Maya Angelou]
Quote of the Day, from brainyquote.com (2026/07/25)
Article of the Day
Las Meninas is a 1656 painting by Diego Velázquez. The painting depicts Infanta Margaret Theresa surrounded by her entourage. Behind them, Velázquez portrays himself working at a large canvas, and a mirror in the background reflects the upper bodies of the king and queen. The Italian Baroque painter Luca Giordano described Las Meninas as the "theology of painting", and in 1827 Thomas Lawrence called the work "the true philosophy of the art". The painting has since become a focal point for scholarly debates about representation, spectatorship, and the social status of the artist. Michel Foucault opened The Order of Things with an extended analysis of its treatment of classical representation; Svetlana Alpers read it as Velázquez's claim for painting as a liberal art; and Leo Steinberg and Joel Snyder have offered competing accounts of its spatial logic and the function of the mirror on the back wall. (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: July 25
July 25: Saint James's Day (Western Christianity); Tenjin Matsuri in Japan; National Day of Galicia; Puerto Rico Constitution Day
- 1261 – Struggle for Constantinople: Alexios Strategopoulos led Nicaean forces to recapture Constantinople, leading to the reestablishment of the Byzantine Empire and the end of the Latin Empire.
- 1591 – Eighty Years' War: Dutch and English forces relieved the siege of Knodsenburg in the Spanish Netherlands, having defeated the Duke of Parma's army in the field.
- 1950 – Korean War: After American troops withdrew, North Korean forces captured the village of Yongdong in South Korea.
- 2001 – Phoolan Devi, a serving Indian member of Parliament, was shot outside her house in New Delhi, India.
- 2022 – The Duffield Memorial (central medallion pictured) in Great Baddow, an "unusual example of Art Nouveau design in metal work", was designated a listed building by Historic England.
- Sibylla, Queen of Jerusalem (d. 1190)
- Hulk (b. 1986)
- Chawarin Perdpiriyawong (b. 2001)
- David Trimble (d. 2022)
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].