711
Umayyad conquest of Hispania: Battle of Guadalete – Umayyad forces under Tariq ibn Ziyad defeat the Visigoths led by King Roderic. This began the successful invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, less than 100 years after the death of the Prophet.
1333
Wars of Scottish Independence: Battle of Halidon Hill – The English win a decisive victory over the Scots.
1545
The Tudor warship Mary Rose sinks off Portsmouth; in 1982 the wreck is salvaged in one of the most complex and expensive projects in the history of maritime archaeology.
1553
Lady Jane Grey is replaced by Mary I of England as Queen of England after only nine days of reign.
1701
Representatives of the Iroquois Confederacy sign the Nanfan Treaty, ceding a large territory north of the Ohio River to England.
1843
Brunel’s steamship, the SS Great Britain, is launched, becoming the first ocean-going craft with an iron hull or screw propeller and also becoming the largest vessel afloat in the world.
1863
American Civil War: Morgan’s Raid – At Buffington Island in Ohio, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan’s raid into the north is mostly thwarted when a large group of his men are captured while trying to escape across the Ohio River.
1864
Taiping Rebellion: Third Battle of Nanking – The Qing Dynasty finally defeats the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
1942
World War II: Battle of the Atlantic – German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz orders the last U-boats to withdraw from their United States Atlantic coast positions in response to the effective American convoy system.
1963
Joe Walker flies a North American X-15 to a record altitude of 106,010 metres (347,800 feet) on X-15 Flight 90. Exceeding an altitude of 100 km, this flight qualifies as a human spaceflight under international convention.
1981
In a private meeting with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, French Prime Minister François Mitterrand reveals the existence of the Farewell Dossier, a collection of documents showing that the Soviets had been stealing American technological research and development.
1997
The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army resumes a ceasefire to end their 25-year campaign to end British rule in Northern Ireland.
"Liberalism is not about finding all life’s meaning in a shopping list, it just says that we need more meaning than can be found in a ballot paper. And that those who seek the meaning of life in collective projects that they try to enforce on everybody have less of a sense of the beautiful richness and diversity of human nature than the alleged cold and robotic market liberals."--Norberg
***
A French-led team of researchers has lifted 22 massive stone blocks out of the Mediterranean Sea that were once part of the legendary Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
***
Is it possible to have a mantle of authenticity?
***
Killer AI is already here. It’s called "drones."
***
New findings from the University of Colorado Boulder suggest that erythritol, a commonly used sugar substitute, may carry unexpected health risks. According to the research, erythritol can affect brain cells in ways that may increase the likelihood of stroke.
***
SatStats
***
In his 1968 bestseller, The Population Bomb, Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich proclaimed that the "battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970's the world will undergo famines—hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death despite any crash programs embarked upon now." Instead of that doomsday scenario, farmers deploying modern tech have boosted the number of daily calories per person by more than a third since the 1960s. Instead of rising death rates, global life expectancy rose from 57 years in 1968 to 73 years now.
The total fertility rate—that is, the number of children the average woman has throughout her lifetime—has been falling for decades. On a global scale, it has dropped from 5 kids in the 1960s to 2.2 children now. In the U.S., the rate has fallen from around 3.6 in 1960 to 1.6 today. That is well below the population replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman.
People like Erlich are not cranks, they're just wrong. And scientific and academic accomplishments are not necessarily qualifications for general expertise in all fields. Nor are trends written in stone.
***
Of the 195 countries doing or trying to do business internationally, the U.S. manufactures and sells more products than all but one of them – China, which has a population four times larger.
***
Of the 195 countries doing or trying to do business internationally, the U.S. manufactures and sells more products than all but one of them – China, which has a population four times larger.
Blind tampering with such a successful system seems risky.
***
Before Castro’s communist revolution, Cuba had the fifth-highest per capita income in the Western Hemisphere, ranking third in life expectancy. Its literacy rate of 76% was the fourth highest in Latin America.
***
Before Castro’s communist revolution, Cuba had the fifth-highest per capita income in the Western Hemisphere, ranking third in life expectancy. Its literacy rate of 76% was the fourth highest in Latin America.
See "risky" above.
***
Japan's population of over-65s reached a record high of 36.25 million in 2024, up 20,000 from the previous year, according to government data released on Sunday, underscoring the Asian country's rapidly aging society.
Those aged 65 and older, defined as the elderly in Japan, accounted for 29.3 percent of the total population, also a fresh high.
***
Japan's population of over-65s reached a record high of 36.25 million in 2024, up 20,000 from the previous year, according to government data released on Sunday, underscoring the Asian country's rapidly aging society.
Those aged 65 and older, defined as the elderly in Japan, accounted for 29.3 percent of the total population, also a fresh high.
Will it be long before the youth turn against the aged?
***
Bitcoin has become the world’s fifth-largest asset by market capitalization, behind only Gold, NVIDIA, Microsoft, and Apple.
***
Today, the US economy represents nearly one-quarter of global GDP, despite being home to just five percent of the world’s population.
***
A study finds that “high interior deportation,” with removals gradually rising to 437,500 a year, would cut economic growth by 0.83 percentage point this year and 0.84 in 2027.
If there’s a “self-deportation wave,” meaning half of the people with TPS leave the U.S. before mid-2026, that would shave GDP growth by 1.01 point this year and 0.45 in 2027.
Under “mass interior deportation,” with removals rising over the next two years to a million annually, growth would be 0.89 point lower this year and 1.49 in 2027.
***
The poorest state in America currently has a higher per capita GDP than Britain and is about to overtake Germany in per capita GDP growth terms this year.
***
The tariffs on Vietnamese goods continue. Yet the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative says, “U.S. goods exports to Vietnam in 2024 were $13.1 billion, up 32.9 percent ($3.2 billion) from 2023.” And this figure doesn’t include U.S. exports of services to Vietnam, which are also in the billions.
***
Bitcoin has become the world’s fifth-largest asset by market capitalization, behind only Gold, NVIDIA, Microsoft, and Apple.
***
Today, the US economy represents nearly one-quarter of global GDP, despite being home to just five percent of the world’s population.
***
A study finds that “high interior deportation,” with removals gradually rising to 437,500 a year, would cut economic growth by 0.83 percentage point this year and 0.84 in 2027.
If there’s a “self-deportation wave,” meaning half of the people with TPS leave the U.S. before mid-2026, that would shave GDP growth by 1.01 point this year and 0.45 in 2027.
Under “mass interior deportation,” with removals rising over the next two years to a million annually, growth would be 0.89 point lower this year and 1.49 in 2027.
***
The poorest state in America currently has a higher per capita GDP than Britain and is about to overtake Germany in per capita GDP growth terms this year.
***
The tariffs on Vietnamese goods continue. Yet the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative says, “U.S. goods exports to Vietnam in 2024 were $13.1 billion, up 32.9 percent ($3.2 billion) from 2023.” And this figure doesn’t include U.S. exports of services to Vietnam, which are also in the billions.
***
England and Wales are one of the few exceptions in Europe with an increased birth rate.
That's due to a surprising rise in babies born to fathers over 60 years old (+14%), which helped trigger the first increase in the number of births in England and Wales since 2021 (+0.6%).
On the contrary, births to young mothers and fathers fell.
Huh?
No comments:
Post a Comment