US anti-abortion activists who operated a site called The Nuremberg Files that contained “Wanted” posters listing the names and addresses of doctors who perform abortions were ordered to pay more then $107.7 million (£65 million) in damages on 3 Feb 1999. Four doctors and two clinic workers who had been killed by activists since 1993 had their names crossed off on the site, and the wounded were highlighted in grey. The defendants were 12 individuals and organisations known collectively as the American Coalition of Life Continue reading →

The land location remotest from open sea is at Lat. 46º16.8’N, Long. 86º40.2’E in the Dzungarian Basin, which is in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, in the far north-west of China. It is at a great-circle distance of 2,648 km (1,645 miles) from the nearest open sea – Baydaratskaya Guba to the north (Arctic Ocean), Feni Point to the south (Indian Ocean) and Bohai Wan to the east (Yellow Sea).

The aircraft with the highest standard maximum take-off weight is the Antonov An-225 “Mriya” (Dream) at 600 tonnes (1.32 million lb). A heavy-lift version of the standard Antonov An-124 “Ruslan” cargo plane, only two of these behemoths were ever built. It was built in the Ukraine (when part of the USSR) to carry the former Soviet space shuttle Buran. It has a wing span of 88.4 m (290 ft) – the greatest of any aircraft currently flying. The An-225 first flew on 21 December 1988. Continue reading →

The aircraft with the largest wingspan ever constructed is the Hughes H4 Hercules flying boat, more commonly known as the Spruce Goose. The eight-engined 193-tonne aircraft has a wing span of 97.51 m (319 ft 11 in) and a length of 66.65 m (218 ft 8 in). It was raised 21.3 m (70 ft) into the air in a test run of 914 m (3,000 ft) , piloted by Howard Hughes (1905-76), off Long Beach Harbor, California, USA on 2 November 1947, but never flew Continue reading →

The Flavian amphitheatre or Colosseum of Rome, Italy, completed in AD 80, covers 2 ha (5 acres) and has a capacity of 87,000. It has a maximum length of 187 m (612 ft) and a maximum width of 157 m (515 ft).

The Great Red Spot on the planet Jupiter is the largest anticyclone in the Solar System. It varies in size but can be up to 40,000 km (24,800 miles) long and 14,000 km (8,700 miles) wide. It was first discovered in 1664 by Robert Hooke (UK) using one of the first telescopes. The clouds of the storm tower some 8 km above the surrounding cloudscape and the storm itself has maintained the same latitude, varying only by one degree.

The aorta is 3 cm (1.18 in) in diameter where it leaves the heart and by the time it ends at the level of the fourth lumbar vertebra, it is about 1.75cm (0.68 in) in diameter.

The ISS qualifies as the largest manmade object to orbit the Earth. It follows an orbit inclined 51 degrees to the equator and its altitude ranges from 360 km to 347 km above the Earth. It measures 109 m x 51 m x 20 m and can easily be seen from the ground with the naked eye during darkness. ISS orbits the Earth once every 91 minutes.

Since the famous impact of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter in 1994, two further impacts have been discovered on the planet, both by amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley (Australia). The first, on 19 July 2009, was caused by an asteroid around 500 m across. The second, on 3 June 2010, is estimated to have been caused by an asteroid around 8-13 m across.

First discovered in 1885, 253 Mathilde, like Ceres, is found in the Asteroid Belt. It measures 41 x 29 x 28 miles (66 x 48 x 46 km) and became the third and largest asteroid to be encountered by a spacecraft in June 1997, whne NASA’s NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft passed it.