Daily Knowledge

"What we play is life."
[Louis Armstrong]

Quote of the Day, from brainyquote.com (2026/08/16)

Madonna (born August 16, 1958) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Dubbed the "Queen of Pop", she is the best-selling female music artist of all time. She has released fifteen studio albums; among her most commercially successful releases are Like a Virgin (1984), True Blue (1986), Like a Prayer (1989), Ray of Light (1998), Music (2000), and Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005). Her top-charting singles include "Like a Virgin", "Papa Don't Preach", "La Isla Bonita", "Like a Prayer", "Vogue", "Take a Bow", "Frozen", "Music", "Hung Up", and "4 Minutes". Madonna's works, which explore social, political, sexual, and religious themes, have generated acclaim and controversy, and have made her a culturally significant and well-documented figure. Her accolades include seven Grammy Awards and a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. She has pursued acting—winning a Golden Globe for her performance in Evita (1996)—as well as businesses, writing, health clubs, and filmmaking. (Full article...)

San Sebastian Church in Manila

1891 – San Sebastian Church (pictured), an all-iron church in Manila, was officially consecrated.
1896 – A group including George Carmack and Skookum Jim Mason discovered gold near Dawson City, Canada, setting off the Klondike Gold Rush.
1900 – Second Boer War: A 10,000-strong column of soldiers led by Lord Kitchener broke a 13-day siege of a small garrison.
1906 – An earthquake registering approximately 8.2 M_w struck Valparaíso, Chile, killing 3,882 people.
1986 – Typhoon Wayne formed over the South China Sea, going on to become one of the longest-lived tropical cyclones in the north-western Pacific, lasting 21 days.

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