Lists and Stories

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  Our Days Are Numbered: 7 Crazy Facts About Calendars For thousands of years, we humans have been trying to work out the best way to keep track of our time on Earth. It turns out that it’s not as simple as you might think. list, calendar, chronology, months, years, time, Gregorian, JulianThe Gregorian calendar—the calendar most widely used today—was...
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  Pablo Escobar: 8 Interesting Facts About the King of Cocaine More than two decades after his death, Pablo Escobar remains as well known as he was during his heyday as the head of the Medellín drug cartel. His fixture in popular culture is largely thanks to countless books, movies, and songs. We’ve decided to make our contribution with a list of facts about...
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  Parting of the Waters There is a line that divides the Americas in two—not the border between continents North and South but a vertical line through their middles. It travels southward from the tip of the state of Alaska through the frost-coated Canadian wilderness, on and over the Rocky Mountains, and deep beyond the...
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  Pearl Harbor in Context When U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that December 7, 1941, would be “a date which will live in infamy,” he was primarily referring to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. However, later in that same speech, he clarified that the Pearl Harbor attack was just one element of a larger...
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  Pennsylvania Wants to Show You These 6 Places Independence Hall, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, and the Allegheny County Courthouse are just a few of the buildings that tell the story of Pennsylvania. Earlier versions of the descriptions of these buildings first appeared in 1001 Buildings You Must See Before You Die, edited by Mark Irving...
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  Periods of American Literature The history of American literature reaches from the oral traditions of Native peoples to the novels, poetry, and drama created in the United States today. This list describes its six major periods. list, American literature, Native American literature, periods, history, writing, authors, American...
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  Perseid Meteor Shower From July 17 to August 24, 2025, the Northern Hemisphere will experience the Perseid meteor shower. The best viewing times will be on August 12 and 13, when there will be a possible peak of 75 meteors an hour. However, the Moon will be in its gibbous (between half and full) phase, so only the...
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  Persian Gulf War Timeline After Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, an international coalition led by the United States fought the Persian Gulf War, defeating Iraq six months later. This timeline details the war’s key events. list, timeline, Persian Gulf, Persian Gulf War, Iraq, Kuwait, United States, George H.W. BushIraq...
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  Philosophers to Know, Part I These five thinkers transformed Western philosophy and shaped its development from antiquity through the Middle Ages and beyond. list, philosophy, history of philosophy, Western philosophy, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, St. Augustine of Hippo, St. Aquinas, St. Thomas Aquinas,...
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  Philosophers to Know, Part II These five thinkers transformed Western philosophy and shaped its development from the 17th through the 20th century and beyond. list, philosophy, Western philosophy, Descartes, Rene Descartes, Kant, Immanuel Kant, Nietzsche, Friedrich Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Martin...
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  Picturing Patricia Highsmith Patricia Highsmith—author of the novel Carol, on which the recent film of the same name was based—would have turned 95 on January 19, 2016. Her novel Carol was an anomaly for her, both in its subject matter, a lesbian love affair, and in its somewhat positive outlook. It was a book that Joan...
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  Pirate Week Ahoy, mateys! It’s #PirateWeek at Britannica. Grab your cutlass and your map and join us (here and on Facebook and Twitter) as we unearth some of our greatest pirate-related treasures. First of all, do you really know what a pirate is? What’s the difference between pirates, privateers, corsairs,...
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  Pirates, Privateers, Corsairs, Buccaneers: What’s the Difference? In casual conversation the words pirate, buccaneer, and corsair tend to be used more or less interchangeably. Some people, possibly to prove they paid attention in history class, also throw around privateer. But do these words actually mean the same thing, matey? Not really. Pirate is the most...
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  Plastic Disaster: How Your Bags, Bottles, and Body Wash Pollute the Oceans Plastic is cheap and durable and has revolutionized human activity. Modern life is addicted to and dependent on this versatile substance, which is found in everything from computers to medical equipment to food packaging. Unfortunately, an estimated 19 billion pounds (more than 8.5 million metric...
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  Plato and Aristotle: How Do They Differ? Plato (c. 428–c. 348 BCE) and Aristotle (384–322 BCE) are generally regarded as the two greatest figures of Western philosophy. For some 20 years Aristotle was Plato’s student and colleague at the Academy in Athens, an institution for philosophical, scientific, and mathematical research and...
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  Poker Hands Ranked Poker can be a fun game between friends or a professional competition. No matter where you’re playing, here’s a handy cheat sheet to help you remember which hands are best and what beats what. A poker hand comprises five cards. The value of the hand is in inverse proportion to its mathematical...
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  Portugal Is Home to These 17 Inspiring Buildings Legend holds that Lisbon, Portugal’s capital, was founded by the ancient Greek hero Odysseus. Although these 17 buildings might not be quite as fantastical as that claim, they will delight you just the same. Earlier versions of the descriptions of these buildings first appeared in 1001 Buildings...
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  Presidential Debate Bingo If you want to get the facts about subjects and people likely to come up in the 2024 presidential debates, click on the topics here. Then, as you watch the televised debates, mark off the topics as they are raised and celebrate when you get five in a row. Spotlight, Britannica, Encyclopedia...
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  Prime Numbers A prime number is any number that can be divided only by 1 and itself. For example, 3 is a prime number because the only numbers that divide it are 1 and 3. The number 4 is not, because it can be divided by 1, 2, and 4. The prime numbers are sometimes called the chemical elements of the numbers,...
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  Prince Philip: A Life in Pictures Philip, duke of Edinburgh, was the prince consort and husband to Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. To many, Philip became familiar as the man who walked a few steps behind the queen. He accompanied his perhaps more famous son Charles, who became king in 2022, and other members of the royal...