On this day:
30 BCOctavian (later known as Augustus) enters Alexandria, Egypt, bringing it under the control of the Roman Republic.
1800
The Act of Union 1800 is passed in which merges the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
1801
First Barbary War: The American schooner USS Enterprise captures the Tripolitan polacca Tripoli in a single-ship action off the coast of modern-day Libya.
1834
Slavery is abolished in the British Empire as the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 comes into force.
1894
The First Sino-Japanese War erupts between Japan and China over Korea.
1927
The Nanchang Uprising marks the first significant battle in the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang and Communist Party of China. This day is commemorated as the anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army
1944
The Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi occupation breaks out in Warsaw, Poland.
1966
Charles Whitman kills 16 people at The University of Texas at Austin before being killed by the police. A remarkable story.
2004
A supermarket fire kills 396 people and injures 500 in Asunción, Paraguay.
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Against Killer Asteroids!
In the Double Asteroid Redirection Test [DART], NASA sent a 1340-pound spacecraft to collide with the Dimorphos asteroid in 2022. The results exceeded expectations, as the impact slowed the asteroid’s orbit around another asteroid [Didymos] by 32 minutes—well above the pre-defined success threshold of 73 seconds. The mission cost only $330 million.
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Cash, subsidies, and long parental leave have had no impact on fertility rates.
Sweden has adopted a suite of “pro-family” policies including heavily subsidized day care, with lower-income families paying nothing, and its birth rate has stayed well below replacement.
One suggestion is that parenting competes with other 'ambitions.' Time is a limited asset, forcing triage decisions.
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The former Olympian who was accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Reflecting Pool will no longer face charges after federal prosecutors said there is information suggesting the damage was caused by construction and installation failures.
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Should the Pirates really be buyers at this stage?
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Arizona State University has introduced a new Bachelor of Arts in Content Creation through its Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, allowing students to earn a four-year degree focused on becoming professional content creators, digital storytellers and influencers.
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SatStats
White people make up 15% of the world's population.
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Studies have shown that less than 5% of “intentional communities”, which are set up away from the usual systems in an assumed “self-sustaining” fashion, last longer than five years. What does work are organically formed communities of roughly 20 to 30 families, or an apartment block.
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Twenty-first-century fathers are spending far more time “washing, feeding and preparing food, putting to bed, supervising and playing with children” than they did in earlier generations. In fact, fathers in the United States now spend as much (less-than-college-educated) or more (college-educated) time with their children than mothers did a half century earlier—even though family sizes are smaller.
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More than half a million personal bankruptcies were filed last year, a nearly 50% jump from three years earlier, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
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The South Korean benchmark KOSPI index dived as much as 12.6% before reversing some losses to close down 6%, extending Tuesday’s near-11% rout and putting the market on course for its steepest monthly decline on record. The slide has erased almost 40% of the index's value from a peak reached little more than a month ago.
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Visa-holders founded half of today’s Fortune 500 companies and a majority of billion-dollar startups.
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Canada has reported about 3,500 wildfires so far this year, which is in line with recent historical averages. As for the effects of climate change, a paper in the journal Nature Communications last year reported that fires in recent decades in North America are running far below historical levels (between 1600 and 1880).
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In a March 2025 government survey, 24% of seniors reported that Social Security supplies 90% or more of their income. But when Census Bureau researchers matched responses with IRS filings and benefits records, they found that retirees frequently omitted their 401(k) and IRA withdrawals, making the real figure only about 14%. Meanwhile, 58% of retirees draw less than half their income from the program.
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In 2024, American shipyards accounted for just 0.04 percent of global commercial shipbuilding.
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Individual plans on the Affordable Care Act exchanges are projected to spike by about 14 percent in 2027, according to recent insurer filings.
As of 2025, 93 percent of enrollees in the exchanges received subsidies, up from 86 percent in 2021. If nearly everyone on the exchanges needs subsidies, that’s a clear sign that the product being sold is not affordable.
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More than $1 of every $10 in SNAP benefits went to people who didn’t qualify in 2025.
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A survey:
1. Less than half of all adult Americans can name the first book of the Bible (Genesis)--in Hebrew, unfortunately, Bereshit-- or the four Gospels of the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John).
2. More than 80 percent of born-again or evangelical Christians believe that "God helps those who help themselves" is a Bible verse.
3. More than half of graduating high school seniors guess that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife.
4. One in ten adults believes that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife. (My personal favorite.)
