During the sixteenth century, the Portuguese were the principal traders in the East Indies. By 1600, however, their place had been taken by the Dutch who, sailing via the Cape of Good Hope, set up a powerful base on the island of Batavia. Soon their ships were seeking new lands in order to open up more trade. In 1606 a …

Most European speaks one of the Indo-European languages. However, one language, Basque, which is spoken by people in north-eastern Spain and south-eastern France, isn’t related to any other tongue. Its origins are shrouded in mystery and some people have even suggested that it was spoken in the ‘lost continent of Atlantis’. It now seems likely that the ancestors of the …

Kevin Pietersen — Kevin Peter Pietersen is a South African-born English cricketer. He is a right-handed batsman and occasional off spin bowler who plays for England and Surrey. He had also played for Indian Premier League team Royal Challengers Bangalore for its second and third seasons, captaining the side in his first, prior to being bought by the Deccan Chargers …

Although David Livingstone had trained to be a doctor, he decided to go to Africa as a missionary. He sailed for what was then called the Dark Continent on 20 November 1840 and soon found that his work took him into areas that were virtually unknown. In time he crossed the great Kalahari Desert and later reached the bank of …

The first successful English settlement in North America was founded in 1607 by Captain Christopher Newport. It was situated on an island ad named Jamestown in honour of the king, James I, who had given the settlers their Charter. Newport later returned to England and Captain John Smith became the new leader. Early in 1608 he was exploring the Chickahominy …

Saudi Arabia has the largest petroleum reserves in the world. It comprises almost 1/4th (24 %) of the world’s proven total petroleum reserves. Saudi Arabia’s economy is petroleum-based; roughly 75% of budget revenues and 90% of export earnings come from the oil industry. Officially, it has about 260 billion barrels (41,000,000,000 cubic metres) of oil reserves. It has become one …

Kerry Emanuel was born on April 21, 1955. He is an American professor of meteorology (atmospheric science in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences) currently working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. He has specialized in atmospheric convection and the mechanisms acting to intensify hurricanes. He coined the term “hypercane” in 1994. In 2007, he was …

Bulletproof jackets were being manufactured with ballistic nylon material till the 1970s. In 1965, a compound — poly- parphenyleneterephthalamide – was invented with the brand name Kevlar. This is a liquid polymer which can be spun into fibre and woven into cloth. Kevlar was developed for tyres and, later, for ropes, gaskets and various parts of planes and boats. The …

Surprice! It’s a steel ball! When a steel ball hits a hard surface, like the ground, it dents just like a rubber ball. But the steel snaps back into shape much faster than a rubber ball. It is the snapping back into shape that makes any ball bounce, so since the steel ball snaps back into shape faster than a …

Kenichi Ohmae is one of the world’s leading business and corporate strategists. He is known as Mr Strategy and has developed the 3C’s Model. For a period of twenty-three years, Ohmae was a senior partner in McKinsey & Company, Inc., the international management consulting firm. As a co-founder of its strategic management practice, he has served companies in a wide …