Growth Without Progress Leaves Most in Poverty – Plus Shocking 45-Day Constipation Record, Zealandia Discovery & More

Quote of the day

Economic growth without social progress lets the great majority of people remain in poverty. | John F Kennedy

Did you know?

Somebody has been constipated for 45 days. In 2013, an unfortunate Indian woman had to undergo surgical removal of a faecal mass as large as a football. You could say, ‘she was full of shit’

What's on this day, February 17

1370 The Battle of Rudau, in Lithuania, takes place during the Northern Crusades (a series of wars against so-called ‘pagans’).

1600 Ahead of his time, martyr for science, friar Giordano Bruno is burned alive for heresy in Rome, because he challenged the Church’s core beliefs with ideas that were just too much to stomach at the time. Among his views was the idea that stars were distant suns surrounded by planets, which might foster life.

1795 Thomas Seddal harvests an 8.3kg potato from his garden in Chester, England.

1838 Hundreds of Khoikhoi, Basuto and Boer settlers are slaughtered by the Zulu impis in the wake of the killing of Piet Retief and 100 of his men at King Dingaan’s kraal at uMgungundlovu, in the emaKhosini valley, near the modern-day town of Melmoth, on February 6. The massacres at Doringkop, Bloukrans River, Moordspruit, Rensburgspruit and other sites around the present-day town of Weenen (whose name means, ‘place of weeping’) in an attempt to drive the settlers from Zulu lands.

1854 Britain recognises the independence of the Orange Free State.

1867 The first ship navigates the Suez Canal.

1972 The Volkswagen Beetle becomes the world’s most popular car, but today the world’s best-selling car is the Toyota Corolla.

1972 Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti receives a record 17 curtain calls after his performance in La fille du régiment at New York’s Metropolitan Opera house.

2017 An continent, Zealandia, in the South Pacific, is announced in the journal, GSA Today, as having been discovered. Also known as the New Zealand continent or Tasmantis, it is an almost entirely submerged mass of continental crust that sank after breaking away from Australia 60-85 million years ago.

2022 28 000 women apply for 30 jobs driving trains after they are advertised for women in Saudi Arabia for the first time.

2024 Ukraine pulls its troops from the key eastern town of Avdiivka, blaming a lack of western-supplied weapons.

2025 A plane crashes and flips over at Toronto airport, injuring 21 people, the fourth major aviation accident in North America in a month.

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