Peter Henlein, a 16th-century locksmith and clockmaker from Nuremberg, Germany, is considered to be the architect of the first ‘watch’. Devices for reading time, like sundials, obelisks, and hourglasses were used to measure the passage of time since ancient ages. The credit for the first mechanical water clock goes to the Chinese genius Su Song, for…
Verkhoyansk, a Siberian town in Sakha Republic, Russia, is one of the coldest inhabited places on earth. This town holds the Guinness World Record of having the highest temperature range in the world. Temperatures in peak winter season are as low as –45 degrees Celsius. In summers, the average temperature is around 16 degrees Celsius….
Abstemious means ‘sparse use’ or ‘moderate intake of food and drink’; facetious means being ‘flippant’. Apart from their interesting meanings, the words have a unique connection between them. Both these words have all the vowels in alphabetical order. Such words are quite rare and form a very short list. Abstentious is another such word. The…
This day in the year 1947 saw the establishment of Indian Standard Time (IST) as the official time for the entire country. It is the time observed in India and Sri Lanka. It is denoted as E. IST is observed with reference to 82.58° E longitude that passes precisely through Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh. It is ahead of Greenwich…
The island country Maldives, one of the most geographically dispersed countries, is a chain of twenty-six atolls spread around 90,000 sq km. The word ‘atoll’ – an island, or a group of islands, formed of coral – is a word that has its roots in the Maldivian language Dhivehi. The word ‘atoll’ derives from the Dhivehi word atholhu. Much to the delight…
The Black Death, also known as Black Plague, is one of world’s worst pandemics. The disease entered European lands in around 1343 through Crimea, passing the Silk Route and beginning from Central Asia. One of the main causes is believed to be rat fleas hosted by black rats, of which trade ships used to be replete…
