About 43 million years ago, the Pacific plate took a northwest turn, creating a bend where new upheavals initiated the Hawaiian Ridge. Major islands formed included Kauai, 5.1 million years old, Maui, 1.3 million years old, and Hawaii, a youngster at only 800,000 years old.

Anthropologists believe that people have been making and wearing shoes for more than 10,000 years. The Egyptians wore sandals woven from papyrus leaves.

Dr Joel Poinsett, the first US ambassador to Mexico, brought the plant back in 1828. Mexicans had long revered poinsettia because it resembled the Star of Bethlehem.

Besides exchanging gifts they eat turkey on Christmas Day, and in some places there are even community Christmas trees. They decorate their houses with evergreens and mistletoe, and in some homes Christmas carols are sung gaily.

The last person to be guillotined in France, Hamida Djandoubi, was executed in 1977.

Rattan palms found in the jungles of Southeast Asia have vinelike stems that trail along the jungle floor up to 250 feet in all directions.

The average American sees or hears 560 advertisements a day.

The two hemispheres of a dolphin's brain work independently. For 8 hours, the entire brain is awake. The left side then sleeps for 8 hours. When it wakes up, the right side sleeps for 8 hours. Thus, the dolphin gets 8 hours of sleep without ever having to stop physically.

The father of the pink flamingo (the plastic lawn ornament) was Don Featherstone of Massachusetts. Featherstone graduated from art school and went to work as a designer for Union Products, a Leominster, Massachusetts company that manufactured flat plastic lawn ornaments. He designed the pink flamingo in 1957 as a follow-up project to his plastic...Read more

During Australia’s gold rush in 1850, only a few miners ever became rich. Instead, merchants and shopkeepers were the ones who really got rich.

For many years, the globe on the "NBC Nightly News" spun in the wrong direction. On January 2, 1984, NBC finally set the world spinning back in the proper direction.

A famous stallion will, on retirement, command an impressive stud fee for servicing approved mares. Specialist stud-farms house one or more stallions, each of which is allowed to service about 40 mares per season.

In an effort to sell more licensed apparel, minor-league baseball teams were changing their names so often that the sport's governing body now limits franchises to team name changes every three years.

The Louisville Slugger logo doesn't always appear just on baseball bats. One of the more recent adaptations of the familiar oval was on the first cruise missile fired in the Persian Gulf war. The missile was painted by sailors on the U.S.S. Louisville nuclear attack submarine which fired the opening shot of the conflict. Each of the sailors on ...Read more

Primitive blue-green algae grow in hot springs near Yellowstone's steaming geysers, defying scientific expectations by enduring and thriving in water temperatures as high as 160 degrees F.

An acute overdose of caffeine, usually in excess of 250 milligrams (more than 2-3 cups of brewed coffee), can result in a state of central nervous system overstimulation called caffeine intoxication. Symptoms may include restlessness, nervousness, excitement, insomnia, flushing of the face, increased urination, gastrointestinal disturbance, ...Read more

The Medal of Honor is the only service decoration that is singled out in federal law to protect it from being imitated or privately sold. All Medals of Honor are issued in the original only, by the Department of Defense, to a recipient. Misuse of the medal, including unauthorized manufacture or wear, is punishable by fine and imprisonment ...Read more

The mule possesses the sobriety, patience, endurance and sure-footedness of the ass, and the vigour, strength and courage of the horse. Operators of working animals generally find mules preferable to horses: mules show less impatience under the pressure of heavy weights, while their skin, harder and less sensitive than that of horses, renders ...Read more

The chameleon, a small lizard generally measuring 6 or 7 inches, has a tongue several inches longer than its body. With a thrust of this remarkable appendage, it can catch insects some 10 inches away.

The Mormon leader Brigham Young had 27 wives.