Daily Content Archive
(as of Saturday, August 10, 2019)| Word of the Day | |||||||
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adorable
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| Article of the Day | |
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 Giordano BrunoBruno was a 16th-century Italian philosopher who theorized that the universe is infinite. He entered a Dominican convent as a teen but abandoned the order after being accused of heresy and began traveling Europe lecturing and teaching. His cosmological theories anticipated modern conceptions of the universe but led to his excommunication by the Roman Catholic, Calvinist, and Lutheran churches. Arrested by the Inquisition in 1593, he was burned at the stake after a trial lasting how many years? More... | |
| This Day in History | |
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 Magellan Space Probe Reaches Venus (1990)The first planetary spacecraft to be launched from a space shuttle, Magellan took 15 months to reach its destination, arriving in orbit around the second planet from the Sun in August 1990. It was then put to work generating high-resolution maps of Venus's surface and measuring the planet's gravity. Four years later, with its mission complete, Magellan plunged into Venus's tremendously dense atmosphere and disintegrated. What do Magellan's images reveal about the planet? More... | |
| Today's Birthday | |
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 Henri Nestlé (1814)Born in Germany, Nestlé was the 11th of 14 children—only half of whom survived to adulthood. After apprenticing to a pharmacist in the 1830s, he began to work on an infant food that could serve as a substitute for breast milk for struggling babies. Combining milk, flour, and sugar, he created the first commercial infant formula and founded what is today the largest processed foods company in the world. The Nestlé company logo is derived from the family coat of arms, which includes what image? More... | |
| Quotation of the Day | |
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 Man tends to increase at a greater rate than his means of subsistence.Charles Darwin (1809-1882) | |
| Today's Holiday | |
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 Perseids Meteor Shower (2020)A meteor shower occurs when a number of meteors enter the Earth's atmosphere at approximately the same time and place. Since the year 36 CE there have been records of an annual meteor shower known as the Perseids (because it appears to originate in the constellation Perseus) that is most observable during the nights of August 10-12. Observers everywhere except the South Pole can see as many as 60 meteors an hour streak across the sky on what is often referred to as the Night of the Shooting Stars. More... | |