In several countries, people cannot bring in animals freely from abroad. Any animal that does arrive must go into quarantine and spend several months in a cage before being allowed to mix freely with other animals and people. There is a very good reason for this law. It is to prevent the spread of a terrible disease called rabies. People …

In the United Kingdom, Australia and many other parts of the world, the word ‘flat’ is used to mean an apartment or a house. It is derived from the Scottish word ‘flet’ which means the interior of a house. In Old English, flet means house or floor. The word flat may also be linked to the “flatness” of the abode.

Nuclear umbrella refers to a guarantee by a nuclear-weapon state to defend a non-nuclear allied state. It is usually used for the security alliances of the United States with Japan, South Korea, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and Australia, originating with the Cold War with the Soviet Union. For some countries, it was an alternative to acquiring nuclear weapons themselves.

The name under which the he wrote his many sea-faring novels was Joseph Conrad. He was born in the Ukraine in Russia on December 6, 1857. His boyhood was passed in Caracow in Poland. There he learned to speak and write French fluently and first began to take a great interest in the sea. At the age of 17 he …

Hashim Mahomed Amla (born 31 March 1983) is a South African cricketer. Born to a South African Muslim family, Amla’s grandparents are originally from Surat, Gujarat (India), having emigrated to South Africa numerous years earlier. His elder brother, Ahmed, is also a professional cricketer, having made his debut two years earlier, and currently captains the Dolphins. Upon his Test debut, …

Harbhajan Singh (born: 3 July 1980) is an Indian cricketer. A specialist bowler, he has the second-highest number of Test wickets by an off spinner behind Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan. Harbhajan made his Test and One Day International (ODI) debuts in early 1998. His career was initially beset by investigations into the legality of his bowling action and disciplinary incidents …

Graeme Smith became the youngest ever South African cricket captain at the tender age of 22, taking over the captaincy reigns from Shaun Pollock. Today, he has matured into one of the best captains in the world of cricket. Born and raised in Johannesburg to parents Graham and Janet, Graeme was educated at King Edward VII School. He played three …

Gautam Gambhir (born 14 October 1981, in Delhi) is an Indian opening batsman. He has been a member of the Indian national cricket team since 2003 (ODIs) and 2004 (Tests). Gambhir had been a prolific run-scorer in domestic cricket with an average of over 50 but his two successive double-hundreds in 2002 (one of them against the visiting Zimbabweans) made …

A downager is a person who acts younger than his or her age. There is a growing trend among women aged over 60 to live it up, hence the term dowager has been reinvented as downager. A study of independent, socially active Australian women found them working, studying, starting businesses and changing careers at the age of 60 and above. …

The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter’s Mill, in Coloma, California. News of the discovery brought some 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. Of the 300,000, approximately half arrived by sea and half came overland. The gold-seekers, called “Forty-niners” (as …