The academic qualifications given to sixteen-year-old children in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland after completing their compulsory Key Stage 4 education.
General Certificate in Secondary Education
Fact of the Day
The first people to use umbrellas in eighteenth-century Britain were laughed at and called 'mincing Frenchmen'.
Quote of the Day
"Were this the skeleton of the oldest man, then the oldest man was a freak
"
~ Mayer on the Neanderthal, 1864.
On This Day
1846 Scottish surgeon Robert Liston was the first European to use anaesthesia during an amputation. He could amputate a leg in two and a half minutes.
1898 Scientists Pierre and Marie Curie discovered the radioactive element radium.
1937 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs', the world's first full-length animated film, premiered in the USA
1946 A tsunami caused by an undersea earthquake killed at least 1,362 and left thousands homeless in Japan.
1967 Louis Washkansky, the first man to undergo a heart transplant, died in Cape Town, South Africa, 18 days after his operation.
1988 Pan Am Flight 103 exploded as it was flying over Lockerbie, Scotland. All 243 passengers and 16 crew, and 11 residents of Lockerbie were killed