SatStats

 

On this day:

537
The Hagia Sophia is completed.
1831
Charles Darwin embarks on his journey aboard the HMS Beagle, during which he will begin to formulate the theory of evolution.
1845
Ether anesthetic is used for childbirth for the first time by Dr. Crawford Williamson Long in Jefferson, Georgia.
1939
Winter War: Finland holds off a Soviet attack in the Battle of Kelja.
1968
Apollo Program: Apollo 8 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, ending the first orbital manned mission to the Moon.
1978
Spain becomes a democracy after 40 years of dictatorship.

2009
Iranian election protests: On the Day of Ashura in Tehran, government security forces fire upon demonstrators.

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"If you hang a sign that says “horse” on a cow, that doesn’t make it a horse.

Get it? If you do, then you’ll quickly grasp that a Latin American dope dealer is not an alien enemy combatant. The Defense Department, a creature of statute, does not become “the Department of War” by a presidential decree that sends Pete Hegseth to the front of the Pentagon with a plaque and a screwdriver. A foreign terrorist organization does not, by the abracadabra of “designation,” become an authorization for the use of military force — even if we generously assume that a drug gang is the same thing as a terrorist organization. Lindsey Halligan is not the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Riots are neither patriotic nor mostly peaceful. The congressionally established John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is not, by dint of wand-waving by a crony committee, the Trump . . . anything.

And fentanyl is not a weapon of mass destruction, even if the “horse” sign in this instance happens to be an executive order."--McCarthy

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The US Tech Force is recruiting an elite corps of engineers to build the next generation of government technology.

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An estimated 150,000 people, mostly from Asia and Africa, have been trafficked to Cambodia by criminal gangs, say rights groups and cybercrime researchers. Many of these laborers have been held in compounds on the border with Thailand, forced to deliver on online romance, investment, and other scams.

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SatStats


Global suicide rates have declined by 29% from 2000 to 2021

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In 2024, the average company was 14 years old at IPO, in 2004, it was 8.  

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The share of poetry lines that rhyme has been in long-term decline.

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Until around 2009, pedestrian deaths in the US had been falling, declining from 7,516 deaths in 1975 to just 4,109 in 2009 (in per capita terms, this decline would be even larger). But since 2009, pedestrian deaths have surged.

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Consumers of all age groups are using around four different fragrances regularly, which is a significant change from a decade ago when they had one signature scent.

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The best private equity/venture funds don’t return capital for 16-20 years.

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The average U.S. car commuter is spending a record 63 hours annually stuck in traffic. That’s the most since 1982, when the dataset begins.

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In June 2025, China overtook the US in large language model (LLM) downloads.

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The Three Gorges Dam moved so much material closer to the equator that it added 0.06 microseconds to the length of each day.

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Stablecoins could soon be the biggest buyers of treasury bills (T-bills) in the world.

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The computational performance of leading AI supercomputers has doubled every 9 months.

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A study of 500 diners found “attractive servers earn approximately $1,261 more per year in tips than unattractive servers.” Mostly because of “female customers tipping attractive females more than unattractive females.”