Discovering Something New -- ongoing learning

  (The New Book of Knowledge encyclopedia)

  (The New Book of Knowledge encyclopedia)

  (The New Book of Knowledge encyclopedia)

 (National Geographic, January 2011)

(National Geographic, December 2005)

There is more diversity in Africa than on all the other continents combined.  That’s because modem humans originated in Africa and have live...

(Star of the West, vol, 19, no. 9, December 1928)

These men smuggled themselves into the hands of Palestine authorities. At 'Atlit tamp, near Haifa, they had to remain until the quota...

(Skulls from the collection of Samuel Morton, the father of scientific racism, illustrate his classification of people into five races—...

Tehran 1930s Tehran is the town best known by Europeans, for it is the-capital of the country, a position it attained when the present r...

(National Geographic, March 2004)

(National Geographic, June 2011)

Yes, the Big Chill is coming, but you won't need your industrial-strength thermal underwear for another 3,000 to 20,000 years. Over the ...

Staphylococus epidermidis is a common form of bacteria  found on human skin. Invisible to the eye, bacteria are revealed when a handpri...

The 5500-mile-long Andes of South America would stretch from San Francisco to London. Only the Himalaya reach higher than these snowy pea...

(National Geographic, Jan, 2007)

  Even a tiny paint flake left floating in orbit can pit the window of a space shuttle traveling 17,500 miles an hour. To avoid catastr...

A third kind of human, called Denisovans, seems to have coexisted in Asia with Neanderthals and early modern humans. The latter two are ...

Iran – Visitors inspect a ruined dakhma, or tower of silence, near Yazd. In the Zoroastrian tradition, dead bodies – believed to be in da...

They eat insect pests. They pollinate useful plants, as bees do. Their droppings, called guano, are used as fertilizer. Bats are mammals...

An imagining of Idris visiting Heaven  and Hell ʾIdrís is an ancient prophet and patriarch mentioned in the Qur'an, whom Muslims be...

Staying home to watch TV on Saturday night was no longer a shameful admission, thanks to Saturday Night Live. Within months of the show'...

Jane Goodall - a willowy blonde who left the civilized world of England to live in the wilds of Africa to study chimpanzees. Her observation...

(2008 Time Almanac)

Having survived the many hardships of the 19th century - including a wrenching Civil War at mid-century and, in the last decade, economic de...

(National Geographic)

Map of the world with the participants in World War I in 1917. Allies are in green, the Central Powers in orange and neutral countries ...

The 1896 Olympic Games featured the first Olympic marathon, which followed the 25-mile route run by the Greek soldier who brought news of a...

(Wikipedia)

At the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, N.Y., a women’s rights convention was the first ever held in the United States. Almost over 200 w...

Like fellow gas giant Jupiter, Saturn is a massive ball of mostly hydrogen and helium. Surrounding by 53 confirmed and nine provisional m...

Among the Muslim communities of the Middle East, women lived entirely under the domination of men and were not allowed to take part in publ...

The years 1968 and 1969 were racked with war, violence, terrorism, and civil unrest around the world. Wars raged in Vietnam and Nigeria; So...

The area which was formerly the site of the Whitfield Barracks of the British Army was developed into a park in 1970. More than 70 buildi...

Fath-Ali Shah and his sons In theory the king may do what he pleases; his word is law. The saying that ‘The law of the Medes and Persia...

Alice Paul A proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States to provide for the equality of sexes under the law. The centra...

On January 23, 1997, Madeleine Albright, who had earlier served as U.S. ambassador to the UN, assumed under President Bill Clinton the offi...

Native to the South Pacific islands, kava root was traditionally brewed into a drink for royalty. Over time it was taken medicinally to r...

Winds have carried mariners across the seas since before recorded time. They so affected early seafaring that ancient sailors personalize...

There are approximately 3,500 species of mosquito just a few rank among the deadliest creatures on Earth. They include Anopheles gambiae, w...

Archaeological evidence suggests 5,000-yearold bathing facilities in Gaza. Soaplike material found in clay jars of Babylonian origin has ...

Until 1869, few had heard of the giant black-and-white creatures hiding in China’s forests. Decades later, pandamania gripped the world. ...

At a brick factory on the outskirts of Yangon, Myanmar, a swaddled baby sways in a makeshift hammock. The child’s mother works at the kil...

Nasir'd-Din Shah in London at the Garden-Party given at Hatfield House in 1889 (The Illustrated London News May 16, 1896)

(National Geographic)

Fath-‘Ali Shah (1771-1834) whose reign coincided with rivalry among France, Great Britain, and Russia over eastern affairs, ruled Iran from...

Tropical cyclones (hurricanes, typhoons) form and grow over warm ocean water, drawing their energy from latent heat. Latent heat is the e...

New ways to grab dinner, the trick to using a tool, and learning the local dialect. These are behaviors that animals pick up from each ot...

(October 27, 1958 – January 6, 1919) A writer, naturalist, and soldier. He expanded the powers of the presidency and of the federal gov...