"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing."
[George Bernard Shaw]
Quote of the Day, from brainyquote.com (2026/04/16)
Article of the Day
Nynetjer was the third pharaoh of the Second Dynasty of Egypt. Egyptologists have proposed that his reign happened between the late 29th and early 27th century BC and probably lasted around 40 years. Archaeologically, Nynetjer is the best-attested king of the early Second Dynasty. Most events recorded for his reign on the Palermo Stone are religious festivals and censuses. The probable locations for these events indicate that royal activity was largely confined to the capital Memphis and its vicinity in Lower Egypt. The administrative partition of Egypt into nomes happened during his reign. Nynetjer had a large gallery tomb dug for himself in Saqqara comprising more than 150 rooms, some arranged to model a royal palace. When excavated, the tomb housed funerary equipment and stone tools, some of which were used in a ritual feast for Nynetjer's burial. The subterranean tomb was probably built with associated superstructures, but these were levelled and overbuilt by subsequent pharaohs. (Full article...)
Current Events
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Image of the Day
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
On this day: April 16
- 69 – After defeat by Vitellius' troops at Bedriacum, Roman emperor Otho killed himself.
- 556 – Emperor Justinian I approved and consecrated Pope Pelagius I.
- 1912 – American pilot Harriet Quimby (pictured) became the first woman to fly across the English Channel.
- 1917 – World War I: Several French army corps began a massive assault against the German-occupied Chemin des Dames ridge, south of Laon, France.
- 2001 – India and Bangladesh began a six-day conflict over their disputed border, which ended in a stalemate.
- 2013 – Boko Haram militants clashed with government forces, beginning the Baga massacre.
- Aphra Behn (d. 1689)
- Johnnie Lewis and R. Carlos Nakai (b. 1946)
- Johnny Peirson (d. 2021)
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